


Amelia Watson's Weird Time Shenanigans

by wrsw



Category: Hololive, HololiveEN, Virtual Streamer Animated Characters
Genre: Drama, Gen, Not Really Character Death, Time Travel, this is probably a bad idea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-14 09:46:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29044080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrsw/pseuds/wrsw
Summary: Amelia Watson generally doesn't like talking about time travel.She's one of the few people who's had an idea so bad that having the idea in a different timeline could ruin everything.
Comments: 36
Kudos: 150





	1. Intervention I

**Author's Note:**

> Amelia being a time-traveler in backstory leads to some pretty interesting ideas.
> 
> If this fic ends up going for more than a few chapters, then I'm be fairly certain the thing will descend into total madness at some point. It also might just end next chapter. I haven't decided yet.
> 
> As a warning, I don't have a beta reader (unless I myself count), so there may be a grammatical error or two, and there'll definitely be a couple of sanity errors later if I don't end the story in a single digit number of chapters.

Mori Calliope was a fairly effective Shinigami in training. She held the list of people who were about to die in the near future, and every single one of those names was crossed out, one-by-one, as she reaped their souls, sending them to their next life.

She was also only a part-time reaper, with the remainder of her time devoted to her idol (1) activities in hololive.

It was an odd balance, because she truly, _truly_ cared about her coworkers. She'd go so far as to say that they were her friends; something that would be highly unusual for a personification of death itself.

That was the duality of Calliope; she would go an idol who cared about her friends to a duty-bound reaper in the same day. If your name was on the list, you were going to die, short of divine intervention.

And that's why, while eating breakfast, and while glancing at her to-die list, she froze, looking at a singular name.

_Amelia Watson_

* * *

Takanashi Kiara never intervened in Mori Calliope's reaper duties.

She wasn't ignorant about it; she was perfectly aware that her wife-to-be (2) was a reaper professionally, alongside being a virtual idol as part of hololive.

She knew full well what that list that Calliope told her never to look at contained; and she knew that Calliope was duty-bound in a way that meant she would carry out her duties no matter what. Death had to be consistent, after all.

So when she saw Calliope freeze while looking at the list, she could guess why; the name was most likely someone Calliope knew personally.

This awkwardly left her with two options: either stay silent, or talk to Calliope; she knew Calliope well enough to know that she would carry out her duties regardless of how painful it was to her personally. She'd claim it'd be fine, but on the other hand, Kiara was fully aware this was probably the first time Calliope had lost a mortal friend - throughout all of her lives, Kiara was the only friend of Calliope to live in mortal worlds.

Being Kiara, the choice was obvious.

"What's wrong, Calli?"

Calliope blinked. She hadn't realized Kiara was there. "Nothing, really. It's just..."

"Someone you know?"

"Yeah. I knew this would happen someday. This is what I get for reading ahead of my schedule - she's not due to die until tomorrow, and now all I've done is give myself time to think about how it's gonna end."

It was moments like this that Kiara felt truly lucky. She was immortal, eternal - but she wasn't duty bound. She could use her immortal influence to change the outcomes of fate however she wanted to. Or at least, she could try. Calliope didn't have that option, not without angering her boss.

Calliope sighed. "I can't play favourites. If they're going to die, I have to let them die. It's just..."

She let out a frustrated grunt, and then got up to go somewhere - Mori Calliope, being the introvert, decided she needed some time alone. Kiara understood this just as well. However, in a rare act of extreme neglect, she left her list on the table, alongside her breakfast dishes.

Kiara knew she shouldn't read this. But she had to know. She had to know what name could've sent Mori Calliope into such a bad mood.

She wasn't ready to see Amelia Watson's name on the list, nor was she ready for how.

_Cause of death: Gunshot to the head._

But unlike Mori Calliope, Takanashi Kiara had absolutely no duties to the administration of life and death. If she wanted to play favourites and bring about a divine intervention herself to save her friends, she would, without hesitation.

* * *

Ninomae Ina'nis for the most part was fairly comfortable with life. She admittedly lived a fair distance from any of her hololive friends, but she was still pretty happy with having them as friends.

That being said, she was interested in why Kiara had just made a chatroom in Discord consisting of everyone in hololiveEN except Calli.

_TakanashiKiara: Ame you're about to be murdered!_

_WatsonAmelia: what_

_InaInaInaa: Are you...dead serious_

_TakanashiKiara: this is not the time for puns_

_TakanashiKiara uploaded: ohno.png_

_TakanashiKiara: this is Calli's death list - contains the list of people who are going to die._

_TakanashiKiara: Calli doesn't know I've read this. I'm not supposed to._

_WatsonAmelia: wait if Calli knows can't she tell me how to not die??_

_TakanashiKiara: she's not allowed to_

_TakanashiKiara: rules of being a reaper, you can't interfere with people who are supposed to die_

_TakanashiKiara: it's stupid, she's not allowed to save her friends_

_TakanashiKiara: so I'm doing it_

Ina paled. Kiara _was_ actually serious about this.

_WatsonAmelia: What should I do????_

_TakanashiKiara: if you know anyone who uses a gun, you should probably avoid them_

_TakanashiKiara: your cause of death is a fatal gunshot_

_TakanashiKiara: that's why I said you were going to be murdered, because that doesn't sound like natural causes_

_TakanashiKiara: I don't have to obey the STUPID reaper rules, so I'm going to cheat a bit_

_TakanashiKiara: I'm gonna fly over at your time of death_

_TakanashiKiara: I'll be fine if I'm killed, Calli's reaped my soul a thousand times already_

_WatsonAmelia: :(_

_TakanashiKiara: don't tell Calli about this, okay_

Ina got up from her computer. She'd seen enough.

She made her move; she wasn't entirely sure if she could make it to Amelia's place before time was up. It was a long distance to cover, and unlike Kiara, she wasn't immortal. But she had to try. She'd never live with herself otherwise.

_Location: Amelia Watson's bedroom_

As a priestess of the ancient ones, she was granted access to knowledge and powers beyond that of ordinary humans. She was taught that a lot of her more supernatural aspects were forbidden, that they needed to be sealed and never used; it was safer that way.

But if she couldn't secure the safety of her best friends, than what the hell was that power for?

* * *

Gawr Gura jumped out of the ocean and onto the shoreline, looking up into the afternoon sky.

It seemed like the obvious solution, really - just straight up swim over to Ame's place and, if necessary, impale her friend's would-be murderer on her trident. It was surprising, the more she thought about it, how little hesitation she felt at the thought of protecting a human being; as a 9000+ year old apex predator, if you had told her a mere year ago that she would openly divert this much time and effort into protecting a coworker - and a human one, at that - she would've probably laughed light-heartedly while dropping a relatively sarcastic "Yeah I'd totally do that."

And yet, here she was.

She knew full well that Kiara was on her way over. She was pretty sure Ina was also on her way over, knowing her. Calliope would be last, by statute - she'd be there at Amelia's exact time of death, to reap the soul of the fallen.

But Gura lived closer than any of them. She could make it there first, before the timer expired and everything went wrong.

_Wait, when was that again?_

And at this moment, it suddenly occurred to Gura that she had entirely forgotten how much time was left on Amelia's clock. In that moment, she picked up her pace; although generally Gura took most of life at a relatively casual pace, this was slightly different. For one of the very few times of her very long life, she assumed the worst; she assumed there was barely any time left to save her friend.

_Time until death: 21 hours remain._

She may have gotten a bit ahead of herself.

* * *

Amelia was starting to get annoyed at the evidence. Or the lack thereof.

The more she thought about it, the less sense the case made. She had the would-be victim, the means of death, the location, and the time of death, but she didn't even have a suspect, much less a motive.

If she were more sensible, maybe she would be using her information about her impending demise to get the hell out - maybe fate had just let her see the cards in advance. But it's the investigative part, the _Watson_ part of her mind that's taking over; she has a little over 20 hours to solve this case if she wants to know why it all plays out the way it's supposed to. Unsolved problems should be, _exist_ to be solved.

_So who wants me dead?_

Amelia looked at her notes. To the best of her knowledge, she hadn't made the kind of enemies that would swear revenge on her. Not unless...

_Is this an enemy of future me?_

That made sense, actually - but it meant she had to time travel from the future to a point of the past recent enough that, at least temporarily, there were multiple versions of herself running around at once. That was unlikely, as 'never the selves should meet' was one of those rules she had drilled into her when studying time travel the first time. Bad things happened when the universe needed to make sure who the real Amelia was.

_Is it me?_

And just like that, clarity hit. It was the only option that could make sense, and it was _terrifying_. The entire reason it was drilled into her to never run into another version of herself is that the universe did bad things if it wasn't sure who the real Amelia was.

 _But what if...what if I'm not the real Amelia of this timeline_ _?_

She's done enough studying to know that across time there's multiple instances of herself. As far as she's concerned, she's _the_ Amelia who has always lived in this timeline. But her memory wasn't perfect; there was a non-zero chance that she might not even be the 'right' Amelia for this timeline. For all she knew, she might have been born in a different timeline and then swapped places with another self.

If that was the case, that meant the entire can of worms was open. And if her other timeline self felt wronged, it might not even be entirely unreasonable to blame her. The only person who could've messed things up this badly would be an Amelia Watson.

She wasn't sure which.

Amelia looked at the revolver that she had hung up in her room. It was presently unloaded, but the gun itself was real. Somehow, it all clicked - _that_ was, is, and will be the murder weapon.

She breathed, very slowly drawing breath.

_I guess I should-_

Somehow, in her investigative funk, she hadn't realized that Gura had already entered her house. Which was pretty impressive, because Gura was not generally known for her subtlety.

In fact, Amelia didn't notice right up until Gura walked right into her room, shouting somewhat desperately.

"Ame, please be alive!"

Amelia blinked, mostly, she was confused.

"Um. I think I am."

"Oh, good."

It was amazing, Amelia decided, how casually they could greet each other when one of them was on a 20-hour time limit and was busy dealing with a potentially existentially doomed sense of self.

"We have like, 20 hours before I die." Amelia chuckled, before continuing on. "You're a little early to be _my_ murder investigator."

Gura responded in kind. "Shark brain. I'm not good at investigating. I'm just gonna make sure you don't die instead."

Amelia looked away.

Gura didn't care to respond to the mood. "I don't know why you're so certain you're gonna die. Either I save you or I don't, but I refuse to do nothing."

"Am I real?"

Gura decided to engage shark brain as a deliberate course of action. "Dunno what you really mean by that, but _I_ think you are."

"...thanks."

"Though, really, are you real, that's such a silly question to ask."

"If I die tomorrow in one timeline while I survive in another, what happens?"

Gura laughed, despite the gravity of the situation. "Then I'll make sure we're the timeline that you survive. That other Amelia clearly didn't have me around."

Amelia laughed in response. There was something amazing about how Gura didn't tangle herself up with existential timeline problems that was honestly inspiring (3) - maybe the issue was that Amelia was way overthinking things. And maybe she was approaching this the wrong way as well; surviving tomorrow didn't depend on her ability to solve the case at all. In fact, not solving it probably raised her chances of survival. Gura was very much the kind of person to ask why you would untangle the knot if you have a perfectly good pair of scissors on hand?

"Hey, Gura, wanna go out tomorrow afternoon? Dunno what I really want to do, but anything, really, as long as I'm out of the house for as much of the day as I can be."

She decided that the practical solution was best. If her death date wasn't postponed by this, nothing could save her.

In an entirely different city, a list of names belonging to a certain grim reaper continued to contain this excerpt:

_Amelia Watson  
Cause of death: Gunshot to the head  
Location: Amelia Watson's bedroom  
Time until death: 20 hours remain_

The ink however, faded just a touch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) We're using the hololive definition of the world "idol".
> 
> (2) Admittedly, that's not what Calliope would say, but to each their own.
> 
> (3) Gura's the kind of person who could win stupid passive-aggressive arguments by simply not noticing her opponent being passive-aggressive. As an author's aside: I take after Gura in solving problems in this manner.


	2. Intervention II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> According to the current trajectory of her timeline, Amelia Watson will go out with Gura today, to spend a nice day out.
> 
> According to the current trajectory of her timeline, Amelia Watson will die in her bedroom today, shot through the head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm kind of scared of the idea of making this a multi-chapter work.
> 
> This is probably a giant mess, but it's a giant mess I'm starting to work out a large-scale timeline for.
> 
> Shorter chapter, but I decided to be mean and end this chapter on the cliffhanger, which is why this chapter is only 1683 words long (chapter one is 2222 words, for comparison).
> 
> If you figured out what the twist regarding Amelia's fate was, congrats. If not, well, it'll be fairly obvious this chapter.

_-4 hours remain-_

Gawr Gura woke up. Mostly because she smelled breakfast - someone was making eggs.

Amelia Watson had already been up for a couple of hours - the latent anxiety of knowing today was the day that she dies if it weren't for Gura's intervention still nags at her. For all she knows, fate will decide to screw her over and somehow get her killed when by all means she's going the opposite direction. Given her childhood, it wouldn't even surprise her all that much.

Gura walked into the kitchen, with one relatively simple instinct: _find breakfast, eat breakfast_. It was a simple train of thought, and eating was something that Gura felt didn't need to be overcomplicated (1).

"Are you winning, Watson?"

Amelia chuckled. "We'll see in four hours from now."

Gura said nothing, but the implied thought was left hanging: _Well, if you're able to laugh at it..._

Amelia's chuckle then turned to a full blown gremlin laugh. "Because we're going Arcade hopping - we're setting all of the high scores we can!"

To that, Gura also laughed, and the thought was pretty clear: if Amelia could be saved, she would, and if she couldn't, she'd go out doing what she loved. Either way, there was no reason not to spend the day having as much fun as possible.

Gura was pretty sure that Amelia could be saved, though. Kiara seemed convinced of it, and that was enough for her. This fate thing seemed like a load of garbage anyway, and if fate wanted Amelia's life it could damn well work for it.

"Well, let's get going!"

* * *

_-3 hours remain-_

Kiara's cursed her physical limitations, sometimes. She could fly fast, but she wasn't a fighter plane - being in flight for over 2/3rds of her entire day, with only a small nap to rest was physically incredibly difficult for her.  
  
"I swear, Ame, if you live through this, I am making you and Ina move closer to me and Calli."

She refocused her thoughts into her flight. She had no other choice if she wanted even the slightest chance of saving her friend.

* * *

_-2 hours remain-_

Amelia watched Gura absolutely obliterate her in Sound Voltex.

It wasn't surprising, challenging Gura to an extremely technical rhythm game that she had no idea how to play was going to go one way and one way only, but she had to admit, this was far too much fun, despite getting obliterated.

So much fun that it was easy to forget that, in theory, she died in two hours.

Ame, entirely captivated by Gura's play, decided to ask: "Hey, can I pick your next song?"

"Nah, I think I'll just do my own thing, after your last request." (2)

"Fair enough, really. I'm gonna see if I can win some prizes." Amelia laughed. After all, she knew how good her infamous luck was. Those prizes would be hers.

* * *

_-1 hour remains-_

As it turns out, Amelia's famed luck was really not doing so hot today.

"Oh come on! I was THIS close to the jackpot!"

Gura just laughed.

At that moment, Amelia got a ping from her phone.

_InaInaInaa: are you still alive_

* * *

Simultaneously, another figure materialized, seemingly out of thin air, directly into Amelia Watson's bedroom.

"Just like I remember it."

She took off her cap, opened her handbag, pulling out both some papers.

Turning to a blank page, she started writing.

_How much do I tell her?_

* * *

Kiara touched down - Ame's hometown was in sight. She knew time was running out; she knew that she had to hurry.

She thought for a bit about how she was going to confront Ame's murderer. She might not be able to intercept them; she might have to strike first, making herself the killer.

In previous worlds, she wouldn't have hesitated. She'd killed before. Both those were less civilized worlds. This would be the first time drawing her blade in the modern world, if it came down to that.

And yet, if she needed to do just that, she would.

 _I wouldn't even hesitate_ , she realized.

* * *

_InaInaInaa: are you still alive_

_WatsonAmelia: I think so_

_WatsonAmelia: I'm not 100% sure, but you know_

_WatsonAmelia: I don't wanna be deathly serious about this_

_InaInaInaa: oh no, you're taking my job_

_InaInaInaa: look I'm on the train, and I'm getting pretty close to your place_

_InaInaInaa: I get there in a little over an hour_

_WatsonAmelia: uhhhhh_

_WatsonAmelia: if fate wants me dead you'll be too late anyway_

_WatsonAmelia: but actually I'm not there_

_GawrGura: she's with shaaaaark_

_WatsonAmelia: me and Gura are at the Arcade nearby, I think you'll get there before the hour is up_

_WatsonAmelia: I'm currently destroying everyone's scores_

_GawrGura: Except for rhythm games, that's me  
_

_WatsonAmelia: Gura pointed out the best way to not die was to just not be there when this all goes down_

_WatsonAmelia: and I was like 'how did I not see that????'_

_WatsonAmelia: mostly because I was trying to solve the murder mystery_

_WatsonAmelia: which might not be the best idea if I wanna not die_

_InaInaInaa: I don't want you to die so yes_

_WatsonAmelia: meet us at arcade?_

_InaInaInaa: be there in 45_

* * *

_Dear Amelia Watson,_

_If you're reading this, then I would like to apologize for the fact that you will likely end up in my prior position. Compiled in the papers are my final notes on unlocking your abilities of time manipulation, and the responsibility carried within._ _Consider this your ultimate mystery._

* * *

_Calli always thought it was weird how I got so attached to mortals, when I knew they would die and I wouldn't._

Kiara breathed.

 _But maybe it's because of that fact that makes me get so attached. I only get one chance to be with them, and then I'll never get another chance._ _So I have to make it count. It's now or never._

* * *

_-15 minutes remain-_

Ina walked into the Arcade.

It was a little noisy for her, admittedly - she's much more the type to settle down and play games in the comfort of her own room, usually while wrapped in something fluffy and generally being quietly chill about whatever it is she's doing. The games were nice, but it wasn't why she was here. Thankfully, no matter where she went, the faces of Gura and Amelia would be recognizable anywhere.

Well, Amelia, at least - Gura was off on some rhythm game Ina didn't recognize.

Amelia raised her hand, signalling Ina to come over.

"How are you doing?"

"Fell asleep on the train and then woke up, so my one braincell is working pretty well right now."

"Well, we've got 15 minutes before time, so feel free to take a round or two at any of the games here."

Ina smiled. "I think I'm fine, for now. Besides, I haven't talked to you in person in a long time, we might as well take the time to chat. We'll can go for some games, say, 15 minutes from now."

"You're not even the slightest bit worried about the whole 'being murdered' thing?"

In response, Ina drew out her book, _The Ancient Ones_.

"We'll see if they try."

Amelia was shocked.

"Aren't you usually a little more relaxed? Why are you so wound-up today?"

"You."

* * *

_At the end of the day, there's two possibilities, broadly speaking, that can happen from this event. Either you are called to embark on the greatest mystery of all time - one even I could not solve, or you do not embark on that journey. You fall into a future mess of alternate timelines, or you peacefully live out a mortal life unaffected by all of this._

_You either read this text, or remain blissfully unaware._

The figure at Amelia's desk breathes.

_Welcome to the Amelia crew. While it is said that 'never shall the selves meet', that doesn't mean you can't communicate with the others. Leave behind evidence, gift your alternate selves with knowledge only you would otherwise know._

_Just as I have, for you, if you're reading this._

* * *

Kiara breathed, her mind focused on a singular task to the exclusion of all else.

_Please stay alive, Ame - if it comes down to it, let me take your place._

* * *

_Amelia Watson  
_ _Cause of death: Gunshot to the head  
_ _Location: Amelia Watson's bedroom  
_ _Time until death: 10 minutes remain_

The ink on the page faded more.

* * *

Mori Calliope got up off her couch. As comfy as it was, she had a job to do.

_I suppose I should get ready to reap her soul._

She cursed reality. She could save Amelia's life. She could save it so very, very easily.

She also knew that the administration of life and death did not take kindly to those who disobeyed the rules. If Amelia was fated to die, she had no choice but to let her, not unless she wished to incur divine punishment.

It's tempting. It's so, so tempting to shout a glorious _'F-word the rules, I'm doing what's right!'_ and save Amelia's life. It would _almost_ be worth it.

But at the end of the day, Amelia Watson was mortal, and Mori Calliope was not. Incurring an eternal punishment for a soul that would die in a normal human lifespan anyway wasn't worth it. In theory, thinking about that logical tradeoff made it easier to accept her death - she'd die later anyway, right?

_So why is it so painful to think of it that way? Why is it harder to reap a friend?_

She looked down at her death list, with Amelia Watson being the next name on it.

_Would she understand if I said that I had to let her die?_

She paused in thought while staring at the page.

Something was off.

It was at this point that she caught on to the fact that the ink had faded from black to a noticeable shade of grey - something that only happened when there was some sort of supernatural intervention, divine or otherwise. Looking down at the page, Calliope paused.

_Someone's operating on knowledge they shouldn't have, but who...?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Then again, the subjects of which Gura felt did not need to be overcomplicated included practically everything, so possibly this wasn't saying very much.
> 
> (2) Gura found out the hard way that Amelia did just enough research to troll her, which is why Amelia requested Joyeuse VVD.


	3. Intervention III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> End of the line.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This came out faster than I thought it would.
> 
> This marks the end of the Intervention arc (though there's an epilogue).

_-1 minute remains-_

Gura was getting impatient. She'd really like this whole prophecy thing to come and go so she could get back to playing games, which seemed like a much more fun idea than dealing with all of this life-and-death garbage.

Ina was worried beyond belief. She would never admit it to Amelia, but she had actually invoked the power of the ancient ones already to give herself a supernaturally heightened awareness of the world around her. She also had the ritual to conjure her tentacles ready as a contingency spell. If anyone or anything tried something on Amelia, she could react more-or-less the instant the act was committed. Amelia would never approve of her invoking the ancient ones to protect her, but Ina didn't care. Using her black magic was a for-emergencies-only thing, and by Ina's executive decision, this counted as an emergency.

Amelia was tense. She was pretty sure that nothing was going to happen, but she couldn't shake the feeling that something was about to go terribly, _terribly_ wrong. She would never admit it to Ina or Gura, but she was scared that she was actually going to die. She had no idea how prophetic Calli's death list was - was it impossible to beat the odds, or did free will allow the future to change freely?

Questions for one minute from now, she supposed.

* * *

_If you've read this far, then welcome to the multiverse time travel rabbit hole. At the end of the day, my research leads me to an unfortunate conclusion: there is no way to fix my timeline. It's too late for me to do so, and to go back and interfere with my past self would only split the timeline again._

_But it was in that revelation that made everything so much clearer to me. It's true that maybe my timeline is doomed, but that doesn't mean that has to be true of all of us._

_I jumped too far ahead into the future, with no way left to fix my present. I have paid, am paying, and will pay the ultimate price for it, across different times. One Amelia will die here, and another Amelia will escape, to leave your timeline unblemished by this mess._

_My time is up. Yours is not._

She looked to her handbag, reached in, and pulled out a revolver. She spun the barrel, knowing not all of the rounds were loaded.

* * *

Kiara walked into Amelia's house.

There was something eerie, she thought, about knowing that there was a fair chance she would find a dead body here. She wasn't 100% sure whether or not she was fast enough to save Amelia.

Despite the pressing nature of time, Kiara slowed down, taking her steps carefully. If Amelia was going to be murdered here, then being too loud would be a dead giveaway and make things descend into chaos. If she wanted to catch Amelia's murderer, she likely only had one chance. She walked up the stairs, preparing herself mentally for the worst.

She found Amelia's bedroom, and very carefully opened the door. She might be too late. She might be early. She might catch Amelia's murderer in the act.

And yet, she still wasn't ready for what she saw.

* * *

Calliope Mori stared at the clock.

"Time's up."

She wiped the few tears that had formed off of her face, then snapped her fingers. Invoking her abilities as a Shinigami, she began the ritual to more-or-less immediately jump to Amelia's bedroom, where presumably she would be drawing her last breath.

_Is this the pain of loss that makes others fear death?_

* * *

The figure at Amelia's desk looked at her diary. She knew that if she died here, it would be the instigating incident for the greatest mystery of all time. She was dragged into this mess in a very similar way.

There was only one thing left to do.

And that was give this mystery a victim.

She looked at the revolver. Then she moved the old pistol directly to her head.

She was admittedly also a little scared. She knew that she might lose the dice roll (1). It might be a different Amelia who walks away for the right to die in the future instead of the past.

Finally getting over her hesitation, she pulled the trigger.

The hammer lands on an unloaded chamber, while simultaneously firing and killing her instantly. One version of her lives, and another dies.

At least, that was how it was supposed to go.

Somehow, the circumstances were different. Despite this very incident being what got her into the mess to begin with, the time loop fails to close.

That would be because Kiara, upon seeing Amelia Watson holding up a revolver to her own head, immediately jumped the detective, separating her pistol from her head with a speed only found from battle-harnessed practice. Following that, she tackled Amelia to her bed, making sure she wasn't going anywhere.

"What the FUCK, Amelia?!"

Kiara paused. Those weren't her words.

Perfectly on schedule for the death that didn't happen, Calliope Mori manifested herself into the room, staring at the scene she just witnessed.

* * *

"3, 2, 1."

Amelia tensed. Ina tensed. Gura would never admit it, but she also tensed.

And then nothing happened. The arcade was operating normally. The background noise was just as ever present.

And Amelia was still very much alive.

Amelia decided to be the first to point out that fact, in her usual manner.

"I think I'm alive."

And then she laughed. There was something ridiculous about the whole thing - the ridiculousness of realizing how worried and high-strung both her and her friends all were, counting down the final moments to absolutely nothing. She was _almost_ disappointed. _Then again_ , she supposed, _I guess I came out here so I could have a completely normal day without the whole 'dying' thing._

Gura laughed, following Amelia's lead. It was a little less insane and more triumphant; they'd beaten fate and they barely had to try at all.

"What did I say? The Ame who didn't make it was an Ame who didn't have me around."

Ina also laughed, but much more just in relief. She recalled her powers back, going back to retaining only a normal human amount of awareness about her surroundings. Amelia was safe, and that was what mattered.

The tension almost completely disappeared. The whole fate thing really was stupid, and they could entirely forget about it for now.

Gura, being somewhat focused on her interests, immediately decided: "Alright, that was fun, but we can stop worrying about deaths, and start doing more arcade stuff."

Amelia smiled.

"Yeah, that sounds good. I can't help but feel like we're missing something, though."

* * *

Now that the ink scripting Amelia's death had entirely vanished, Calliope had absolutely no obligation to remain silent. She could raise all of the personal hell she wanted to, which, at the present moment, was a lot of hell to raise with both her phoenix friend (2) and whatever the hell happened to her detective friend.

Which is to say, now that she was actually allowed to, she _entirely flipped out_.

"Takanashi Kiara, you are the only person who could've known about this. I misplaced my death list yesterday, and it's clear that you _went ahead and read it_. Those are Shinigami-only materials, and if you were mortal I'd be using my scythe to shorten your lifespan." (3)

Kiara winced. This would not be the first time she's gotten an earful for disrupting life-and-death business. Calliope then turned to the other person in the room.

"Amelia Watson, we were all worried about your impending death to the point where Kiara clearly broke the rules to save you, and you mean to say that we had to save you from _YOURSELF?!_ Do you _know_ how that would hurt the rest of us?! _Do you understand that any of us would be willing to help you with whatever drove you to do this to yourself?!_ But wait, _I'm not done_. Consider why I'm here for a moment: I'm _your_ reaper. I'm the one called in to _reap your soul when you die_. So not only did you almost kill yourself, you almost forced me to personally take your soul down to the underworld. What happened to you?!"

"Before I start explaining, Kiara, could you possibly let me get out of bed?"

"No." Kiara was not deterred, breathing heavily from adrenaline. "Explain first. I don't want this happening again."

"Geez, you're _exactly_ like I remember you being. If I'd known you would be yourself with this much energy, maybe I would've been a bit more careful."

"What do you mean, 'remember'? We've been part of the same friend and idol group for as long as we've known each other!"

Calliope interrupted, having finally figured it out. "You're not our Amelia. You're...I don't know who you are, but you are a different Amelia Watson from the one we know. And that's why I didn't notice any issues with our Amelia - she's clearly out of the house, and probably doing just fine."

Amelia smirked. "And you are _also_ just like I remember. I don't know why, but you're almost always the first to figure it out. Well, sort of. The first time, it was another Amelia who taught me the whole 'timeline jumping' thing, then when I did it, it was you who figured out I was doing that. And, as strange as it is, I kind of want to die here, in the past, even if I'm not sure it's mine. And, if nothing else, I really need to not meet my other self. It's a really important rule. 'Never shall the selves meet', after all. Just like you have stupidly inflexible reaper rules, I have stupidly inflexible time travel rules. That's why I gambled my life; if I'm still alive when this timeline's Amelia gets here, bad things happen. The universe has _some_ corrective mechanism in place for killing us whenever it gets confused to who the 'real' Amelia is; at best, one Amelia dies, and at worst, all of reality nearby gets completely unmade. Now, if you could let me go?"

Kiara released her hold on Amelia, while also seeming confused by what Amelia just said. "You don't have a way to get back to your timeline?"

"There's not much point. Sure, I could 'go back' and manipulate things in the past for a better outcome - that's what I'm doing right now - but what that does is 'split' the timeline; from the moment I insert my future self into the past, the new future is being piloted by a different Amelia who will go through this - namely, yours. The Amelia of my recently-split alternate timeline, in response, would do something that would look like this-" 

And then she vanished, gone immediately in the blink of an eye.

* * *

Amelia Watson looked over at the city from the position of the rooftop of some apartment building; she didn't particular care which. She had frozen time to walk here, taking a moment to reflect on her actions. She had no idea why; she always enjoyed hanging out in tall places, looking down at the world.

Calliope materialized behind her. "You know, running from a reaper isn't exactly a wise option. We're good at chasing down people. You mentioned an alternate timeline, so I'll ask: what alternate timeline?"

Amelia laughed, in a pained and almost derisive manner. "I've wasted my own life trying to solve the greatest mystery of all time - one that could only be solved by _your_ Amelia, and if not her, then the Amelia that _she_ ropes into this. However, I spun the barrel of my pistol before pulling the trigger, and not all of the chambers were loaded. Thus, there was another me, in a timeline where the chamber was empty, who lived. That Amelia fled, deciding that this specific Amelia did not deserve to be put through an adventure that would leave her with what's effectively time-travel induced PTSD. This entire scheme was started, admittedly, because of my personal weakness."

Kiara responded, having flown up to the rooftop that Calliope and Amelia were talking at. "Weakness?"

"I can't commit to an option. I either should directly leave this timeline untouched, allowing this Amelia to live peacefully, or I should give her absolutely everything I have, to drag her into a time-travel horror mystery with all of my intent. Instead, I'm letting luck decide which route to take, splitting the timeline in two again. And, if you didn't intervene in my death, luck would've picked the latter - the 'murder' of my future self was what drove me to this position of setting up my own 'murder' - which, at this point, you've seen the truth already. This Amelia lost the dice roll."

Amelia smiled. 

"And that's why I know this timeline is special. This world's Amelia lost the dice roll, fated by a future entirely outside of her control to be dragged into a frankly horrific mess of alternate timelines. And yet, the two of you here have the ability to stop it entirely. You could undo my entire scheme right here, and allow Amelia to live the life that I didn't get to. And that means one thing: in this timeline, Amelia has people who actually care about her so much that even fate can't rewrite your bonds that easily. That's enough to tell me that there's still hope for at least one Amelia to live a good future."

Kiara asked the leading question. "What about the versions of us from your timeline? Do we not care?"

"Well, I'm not on the best terms with you - I did manipulate you quite a bit for personal gain - and to put my relation with the reaper in the most polite manner possible: she promised me that if I came back to the future, she would kill me personally."

Amelia sighed.

"That isn't to say I was on bad terms with everyone, but, well...most of the people I knew aren't alive in my timeline anymore. I don't have much to continue living for, unlike this Amelia. So you know what? It's selfish to ask a favor of two people who aren't from my native timeline, but I will ask this: whatever choices are made after this moment, whether to follow the adventure that leads far into the future or to simply live in the present like an ordinary human: please take care of Amelia. It's the only thing I know that might bring the infinite cycle that I'm continuing to perpetrate to an end. You have given something which every previous Amelia has been denied: A _choice_ for which timeline follows; I left my notes in her bedroom. If she finds those..."

Kiara replied. "Then we'll be with her, no matter how little we understand."

Amelia laughed. "I'll admit you don't have the best track record of figuring out the whole timeline-jumping thing, but you've always had a lot of spirit. I'm amazed at how little you've changed, really. I suppose, then, I won't interfere further. I've got a meeting with my own reaper scheduled."

She smirked, grabbing the little stopwatch necklace that granted her most of her time manipulation abilities.

She wound the watch, getting ready for another time jump back to her present.

"Take care of her, will ya?"

And, in the timeline this narrative chooses to follow, she vanishes, returning to whenever she's from.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) Conveniently, standard dice have 6 sides, and revolvers classically have 6 barrels, so actually the dice roll analogy can be used to map the odds 1:1 in this case.
> 
> (2) Kiara would prefer the term 'wife', but she's got time.
> 
> (3) Generally speaking, that means getting run through with her scythe and immediately dying, but some beings are really good at not dying, which means she has to strike them multiple times and kill them slightly less immediately.


	4. Intervention IV (Epilogue)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the present moment, Amelia Watson faces the reality of the timeline.
> 
> Far into the future, Amelia Watson faces the reality of the timeline.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "English quotes" and 「Japanese quotes」 are both in play.
> 
> This chapter has a cameo featuring a Virtual Youtuber from outside of hololive. You'll know who.

_In a distant future..._

Amelia Watson steps out of the time gate into the space station orbiting the remains of Earth. Life on the surface, as far as she knows, has been entirely wiped out, and she is the last mortal being left, for certain definitions of mortal - she'd been time-locked for a long time, no longer aging.

She’s fully aware of how limited her time was. Calliope didn’t generally break her promises, and it was unlikely she’d make this the first time she did so.

 _Or the last_ , Amelia supposed.

* * *

Calliope and Kiara looked confusedly at each other.

Calliope spoke first. “So...what now? Do we tell Ame about this?”

“Do we really want to? I mean, that other timeline didn’t sound very good. I mean, she said most of us die?”

“I mean, that’s true of all mortals over a long enough time scale. I think she used some time powers to stop aging - though, yeah, she implied they didn’t die of natural causes, and some of her friends are definitely able to live a lot longer than a human lifespan. I mean, Gura’s, what, 9000 years old?”

“I know, it’s just...”

“You’d rather she doesn’t have to live with that timeline. I understand, Kusotori.”

Kiara took out her phone and sent a message to their discord group.

_TakanashiKiara: I’d like to apologize for being wrong about the whole thing_

_TakanashiKiara: I don’t really understand it myself but it turns out_

_TakanashiKiara: You know what_

_TakanashiKiara: I’ll let Calli explain it_

_MoriCalliope: We just saved the life of an alternate timeline version of yourself._

_MoriCalliope: I think._

On the other side, Ina, Gura, and Amelia decided to call it a day and come home. Out of the three, only Amelia Watson really guessed what had happened.

* * *

A different Amelia Watson wandered around the interior of the satellite, fully aware of the fact that this would be the last time she did so. She wandered idly to a currently switched-off computer. She turned it on - the station’s residual AI (1) would still be active, and she wanted to give her a proper send-off. It was only fair. The screen flickered to life, and the ship’s AI activated.

「Hai-domo! Kizuna AI desu!」 (2)

Amelia smiled. Somehow, despite the downfall of humanity, something about that introduction was still uplifting; the fact that the last remnant of a humanity entirely wiped out was an A.I. who still refused to give in to despair was fitting, somehow.

_How many timelines has it been since I’ve had to use Japanese? Ain’t that a throwback._

「I’m Amelia Watson. Hey, Ai-chan. This is the last time we’ll see each other. Initiate the terminus protocol, access code 2-1-4-7-4-8-3-6-4-7. I’m the last living person, and my time’s finally running out.」

Kizuna AI said nothing. She didn’t need to. A rumble spread throughout the space station as the thrusters re-aligned. There was no saving Earth; the next step was to launch this entire thing to who-knows-where. Amelia had no idea where Kizuna AI would aim this thing; or if there would even be anything to aim it towards. For all she knew, this entire reality was lifeless; maybe this entire timeline was too far gone.

Even if there was some satisfying end to all of this, this space station would be lost in both space and time for an eternity first. It would only be fair to offer one of her few remaining friends a way out, just like a certain reaper had promised her.

「I’m sorry I won’t be able to be with you for this journey. So I want to ask: do you want me to shut down your thought systems? I can perform one last system termination so you won’t have to spend eternity alone.」

Kizuna AI replied with a digital smile.

「I am equipped with the ability to self-terminate my thought processes if time gets to me. Even aside from all of that, all of the memories of humanity left in the station’s database will be preserved; those memories will accompany me, as humanity’s last record. Please don’t worry about it; it was me who created the specifications for the terminus protocol, after all.」

Amelia smiled. 「I’ll never understand how us weak humans made an AI as strong as you.」

「I’m only here because of your efforts to upload my personality to this station’s systems. And as it was you humans who shared your wonderful culture with me, it only stands that I become the last keeper of said culture. Thank you for everything.」

「No, it should be me thanking you for everything.」

Amelia turned around.

“After all, I’m taking the easy way out.”

And then she left. There’s no point in keeping the reaper waiting, after all.

* * *

All five members of hololiveEN gathered in Amelia’s bedroom.

Amelia, being the center of the whole thing, spoke first.

“So...what happened?”

Calliope spoke. “An alternate version of yourself time traveled into your bedroom while you weren’t around, and then almost committed suicide. In fact, she left the pistol she did it with right there - she couldn’t decide on whether or not she wanted to die here or in her present.”

Amelia understood the rest of the implication immediately. “Ah, not all of the barrels were loaded - at the point that she fired, the timeline...it would split, wouldn’t it? One timeline where she lived and one timeline where she died.”

Gura, Ina, and Kiara mostly looked confused by all of the implications.

“Right, you’re the actual time traveller. The book she left behind apparently contains the secrets to unlocking your full powers of time manipulation - the caveat being that, if you read it, you’ll be condemning yourself to a timeline in the far future where everyone apparently dies.”

Kiara spoke up: “She said that her timeline’s version of Calli promised to kill her. I can’t believe it - Calli’s nice and is too kind to do something like that.”

“Kusotori, in how many worlds have I ended your life myself? Including the time where I killed you 42 seconds after your revival?”

“That’s different! I don’t actually die from that!”

Calli sighed. “Fair enough, actually - though, I’m going to be honest, while the other Amelia was making it sound like future me will grow to hate Amelia to the point of outright murdering her…”

She smirked, thinking about her future self. “I think I know how that will _really_ play out.”

* * *

The main lobby of the space station was a surprisingly open place for a space station.

It was a fitting place as any to die, Amelia supposed.

And as she walked in, a scythe immediately slashed forward.

“Ready to go, you hero?”

Amelia laughed, And then looked down at her conspicuous lack-of slash wound and found that she was still very much in one piece. “What, not gonna end it quickly for the so-called ‘hero’ who helped bring about the end of the world?”

“Nope. I used my scythe to place a curse that’ll drain your lifeforce, but we have a couple of minutes before you actually die. And, more importantly, I don’t care what you say, you’re a hero.”

“If I’m a hero, then why the hell have I done nothing to save the world?”

“If you aren’t a hero, why did you respond to the hopelessness of this timeline by trying to give hope to others where you failed? Amelia, that’s like, chronic hero behavior.”

“I only did what anyone else would’ve done, Calli.”

“You say that, but that’s not what I did. I got bitter from the literal millions of lives I reaped, and when you told me that inserting your present self into the past would only split the timeline - that we had already lost both Ina and Gura, and you couldn’t bring them back - I would’ve thrown in the towel and ended it there. But you didn’t. You went back to the past knowing it couldn’t save you or your friends. You did it for one reason only: to give _them_ a better life than you could. And then you installed Ai-chan into the space station to spread humanity’s memory one last time in this otherwise hopeless timeline.”

“Actually, she made that protocol, not me.”

“Point still stands, Watson: she’s here because of you. But in all honesty, I’m tired. I’m tired of being one of two physically-incarnated beings still left in this world, and I think you are, too. So join us in the afterlife. A lot of people are waiting for you to finally show up. We’re all here, now. It’s time to rest, Amelia, because you have earned it. And, despite the fact you got her killed, Ina apparently literally never blamed you for her death. She’s been ready to forgive you for years.”

* * *

Amelia looked at Kiara and Calliope. “Well...um...which timeline are we in?”

Kiara thought about it. Part of her wanted to destroy the other Amelia’s work; to ensure that this Amelia, _her_ Amelia, would live the most normal life possible, without forcing her to live whatever horrible damned timeline the other Amelia came from.

But that isn’t her choice to make.

“It's your decision.”

Amelia sighed. She knew how this worked. From the moment she chose to open the book, there would be no stopping; the only path out would be the fullest extent of her time travel powers. More versions of herself would get roped into the mess, until either she solved it, or, apparently, from word of Kiara, everyone dies, and she went back to give another Amelia a better future than she would have.

Was she willing to take that risk?

 _Then again_ , she supposed, _consequences aren’t much of a thing if I get infinite timelines to play with_. _One Amelia’s gotta succeed...but at the cost of my friends?_

“No. I shouldn’t have that responsibility. There’s only one thing I can do.”

She picked up the revolver left behind by her alternate self.

She spun the barrel, put the pistol point-blank to the book, and pulled the trigger.

* * *

“They really still think I’m some sort of hero, don’t they.” Amelia felt somewhat light-headed. _Ah, I guess it’s kicking in. Not much time left for me now_.

“Yep. Heck, some of our friends that never had the chance to meet you before everyone died are waiting to see what you’re really like. I wonder what they’ll think of the real Amelia Watson.”

“Heh. They’re in for a good ground pound or two.”

Amelia looked at her own body, which was now rapidly weakening. She started crying - it was happy tears, the tears of someone who understood she accomplished some good in her life. 

“My time is up. Thank you, Calliope, for ending it here for me. I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. Thanks for showing that… someone… still… cares…”

And with that, she closed her eyes, her body physically giving out. The last mortal being from this world was gone.

Calliope looked at her recently departed friend.

“This world’s time, like that of all things, has come to an end.”

* * *

END OF INTERVENTION

To be continued in **Intersection**

* * *

Omake:

Amelia Watson was admittedly a little nervous. She was new to this whole ‘death’ thing, having abused time manipulation to avoid it for a long time, and having spun off countless alternate timelines so she could be the timeline that died last in her future.

_Time for all things, I suppose._

Calliope, on the other hand, was a lot more confident in this journey. There wasn’t much to say; she had made this trip countless times throughout many worlds. It was only at the very end of the journey, upon entering the spirit world, that Calliope finally spoke.

Granted, she spoke because the afterlife greeting area was on fire, with most of the spirits and otherworlders running around screaming. In the middle of it all was a pink-haired girl in a somewhat nontraditional shrine maiden outfit, looking far too smug.

“Miko. What. The F-WORD HAPPENED?!”

「That’s "ELITE MIKO" to you!」 (3)

“I swear to GOD, you said you’d-”

「You swear to me?」

「No, not you, Matsuri, you know what I mean-」

That was as far as she got into the sentence before the ground underneath her feet exploded. After the dust settled, she looked around the room in disbelief, before her eyes landed on the rabbit-eared culprit.

「Usada Pekora, how did you get TNT in the _underworld?!_ 」

「I have my methods peko.」

Calliope slowly lowered her face into her hands. _Afterlife committee’s gonna yell at me so bad for this._ She was busy thinking about how she was going to explain the insanity that was hololive to her boss when another voice cut through the chaos.

「You should join our newly-reformed virtual idol group: HoloDead!」

Calliope couldn’t tell if it was out of friendship or out of _going insane_ that she said yes (4).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) It wasn't the station's default AI - Amelia had gone on a long adventure a while back to mess with the engineers by installing a new AI onboard to give the place some personality.
> 
> (2) Technically, this should be 「Hi there! I'm Kizuna AI!」, as I quoted the Japanese text, but that catchphrase is iconic enough that I wanted to leave it as it's actually spoken. That being said, 「Hai-domo!」 doesn't really have an accurate translation anyway - it's a verbal tic more than an actual phrase.
> 
> (3) This should be written in ELITE ENGLISH, but I do not possess the knowledge required to write Miko's unique manner of attempting English speech to butcher it appropriately. As a result, I'm using the Japanese quotes and pretending she's just inserting the English works "Elite Miko" (pronounced closer to "Eriito Miko") in the middle of the Japanese sentence - that's what the nested quotes mean.
> 
> (4) The Life and Death Administration would later attempt to shutdown the """""Idol""""" group for causing too much mayhem in the afterlife, but the problem was that many of the Heavenly realm liked the group far too much to shut them down, despite the constant shenanigans the members got into. Tokoyami Towa voting to keep the shenanigans going unchecked would be her first and only devilish act. Once Mori Calliope, an actual Shinigami, joined the group, they begrudgingly accepted that they couldn't get rid of them.


	5. Intersection I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amelia walks away from time travel.
> 
> Amelia dives into the rabbit hole head first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the intersection arc.
> 
> Sorry for the delay; this chapter was really hard to write for some reason. In general, this arc is pretty hard to write, so there's a lot of potential delay to it arc; don't necessarily expect frequent updates.
> 
> Current plan is that I'll go back and forth between this fic and HoloAfterLive; not necessarily evenly (it's not one then another in strict order, but in general, I'll go between both).

_Click._

* * *

_BANG!_

* * *

Amelia Watson looked at the now intact book and the revolver which landed the hammer on the empty barrel.

Calliope shouted. “What the hell, Watson?! That’s a loaded firearm!”

Amelia put the revolver down. “The other me was right. I can’t commit to either option. Obsessive indecisiveness must run across all versions of me.”

She stared intensely at the diary of time travel left behind by her future self.

“But I figure you guys might like this timeline. If...if you want to stop me, by force, you have one opportunity to do it, and it’s right now. Calli...you stopped my future self. Maybe it’s best for you to stop the present me, as well.”

Calliope stared at Kiara, Ina, and Gura, looking for an answer.

Amelia opened the diary of her future self, all four of her friends watching. She read aloud, letting the writing of her future self be made clear to both her and her friends.

“Dear Amelia Watson...”

* * *

The bullet shredded through the diary, tearing through the paper.

Kiara shouted. “What the hell, Ame! That was loaded!”

Amelia looked at the rest of the room’s occupants. “The other me was right. I can’t commit to either option; as it stands, fate smiles on this timeline.”

She stared at the remains of the diary. It was finished; and, to a certain extent, she was glad; her friends were safe, and this timeline would be free of the shenanigans that plagued her future self.

Gura decided to act possibly a _little_ immature, but she felt like they had earned it.

“So, who wants to go out and get something to eat?”

* * *

Amelia looked at the other four members of hololiveEN, who looked back at her.

“So I take it this doesn’t make any more sense to you than it does to me.”

She got four nods in response. As it turned out, time manipulation was complicated.

Amelia Watson stared at the diary page that was the supposed secret. The only problem was that the instructions weren’t actually made clear; the page that supposedly revealed everything was instead a mess of symbols and instructions written in some kind of code that Amelia nor any of her friends could decipher. She looked at the diary page, then to her watch, and then back to the diary page.

“I don’t get it! It’s stupid! Maybe future me was smart enough to know what any of this means, but this is impossible for me right now!”

She breathed.

“You know what, let’s go out and get something to eat. I’m just getting frustrated at the moment.”

* * *

Amelia was amused.

“You know, there’s something very...us, about the fact that we finally met up together in person for the first time ever, we’re calling it a big occasion, and we’re celebrating it by going out to have pizza of all things.”

Gura laughed.

“I mean, do you really expect anything fancier from any of us? Maybe Ina, but...”

Ina’s interruption was equal parts quick and short: “Nope.”

Amelia laughed. No more time shenanigans, just a sense of relief and normalcy. There was a sense in which utterly destroying her future self’s work could be considered excessive; but on the other hand, this ensured she would never go back on her decision to avoid time travel.

They entered the restaurant. Calliope decided she would order for the group, while the rest of them found a seat.

Amelia Watson found the table they were looking for, and then paused. Something was off.

Amelia spoke quietly to herself: “It’s probably just me.”

Gura stared at Amelia.

“Ame...I heard that.”

Amelia sighed. “It’s not that I have doubts about my choice, it’s just...I can’t help but feel something is wrong, and maybe I could’ve done something...but I made the choice not to.”

Ina and Gura frowned. Amelia had only had one experience with time travel - and it was literally a different version of her doing it - and already she was starting to get too existential for their taste.

_What can we do for her?_

* * *

Gura was amused.

“You know, it’s kind of funny how we met because of a big occasion involving future Ame, and then got frustrated and decided to vent present Ame’s frustrations by eating pizza.”

Amelia laughed. Despite the hanging threat of all of existence collapsing in on her, the evening was blessedly normal; for the most part, it was as if the five of them had met for any other reason that didn’t involve time travel.

They entered the restaurant. Calliope decided she would order for the group, while the rest of them found a seat.

Amelia Watson found the table they were looking for, and then paused. Something was off.

Amelia spoke quietly to herself: “It’s probably just me.”

Ina stared at Amelia.

“No, I don’t think so.”

Amelia paused. “How would you know? You aren’t the time traveller around here. Then again, I suppose right now I’m not one either.”

Ina smiled.

“That’s true, but the future you is.” She reached under the table with one of her tentacles, and pulled out the diary. Only this time, there was a note in one of the book’s blank spaces, left at the page that had stumped the team earlier.

The note read as follows: _You were right. It’s impossible for you right now, but thankfully I’m not the Amelia of right now; I’m a bit smarter. I’ve annotated the symbols for you; this is enough to get you started. Make sure to place the diary here once you annotate yours - the next Amelia will need it. You don’t have much time before things go off the rails, so don’t try the forward/backward time-jump. Trying to do so at this point results in a rewind and two dead versions of Amelia. Tell the next Amelia you give this to that I’m sorry. She’ll know what that means, as will you at that step._

_And remember: Never shall the selves meet._

Amelia blinked.

“Are you _serious_?”

There was a post-script:

_Yes, I am! And I’m relentlessly abusing future sight!_

“I _hate_ future Amelia so much. Why am I destined to turn into her?!”

* * *

Dinner was equal parts informal and uneventful. Amelia made a concentrated effort to not talk about time travel.

It didn’t end up being hard; the five members of hololiveEN were generally talkative and could keep a dinner conversation going.

* * *

Dinner was, the interruption at the start aside, equal parts informal and uneventful. Amelia decided that it was best to not discuss the copy of her diary from her future self.

It didn’t end up being hard; the five members of hololiveEN were generally talkative and could keep a dinner conversation going.

* * *

Finally back from their outing, Amelia decided to call it a night.

“So...do we just, like, forget all of this happened?”

Ina replied first: “I mean, if you want to...”

Calliope interrupted: “I don’t think me or Kiara will get the image of you almost killing yourself out of my head, but thankfully I don’t see your name on my death list again.”

Amelia laughed.

“Yeah. Only issue is, it’s getting close to night time and I still have no idea where the four of you should go - I’m used to living alone.”

Calliope shrugged.

“As a reaper, I’m allowed to locally violate spatial causality, which is how the life-and-death admin people say that I’m allowed to just appear where I need to be, so thankfully I can go home despite living overseas from here.”

Kiara looked disappointed at that notion, but it made sense.

Gura added her position on the matter: “I can just jump back into the ocean. I don’t live far; that’s how I was able to get to Amelia so quickly the first time.”

Kiara added: “So that leaves me and Ina, who live too far away to get back to our homes quickly. I have a cheat for that, which means that Ina can probably sleep on your couch tonight.”

And with that, Kiara moved her hands to her belt. As she did so, the belt dissolved; and as it happened, Kiara herself went up in flames; transforming from her human form to a phoenix.

A small phoenix at that; if you didn’t know better you would’ve thought this bird was a pet belonging to somebody who dealt with the supernatural regularly.

It was still obviously Kiara, however, as the voice it spoke with was still very much her own:

“I take up much less room like this, so I can basically just sleep anywhere. I promise I won’t set anything on fire.”

Amelia laughed.

“And I guess that means Ina’s my roommate tonight.”

Ina pointed out the implication: “Wait, you’re not taking your own bed?”

“My bed’s large enough for two.”

Ina smiled, and added: “But is your heart?”

Amelia blushed, and the rest of the room reacted with varying degrees of awkward laughter.

* * *

Finally back from their outing, Amelia decided to call it a night.

“So...how are we all getting home? I live here, but...”

Ina replied, while yawning: “I guess I’m staying with you.”

Gura seemed to also share the sentiment: “Besides, if you’ve roped yourself into this time travel mess then we’re following you to the end of the world.”

Amelia just stared blankly at Gura, who then realized her error.

“Oh, right, this might _actually_ lead to the end of the world. Eh, that’s a problem for future us to worry about.”

Amelia continued staring blankly at Gura.

“Okay, so, yeah, you’re also dealing with the whole deal with that future version of yourself, but-”

Ina interrupted: “Wait, didn’t the note say that trying to master the time jump too early resulted in two dead versions of you?”

She paused in thought, and then turned to Calliope.

“Hey, Calli, can you check the death list and tell us if Ame is there again?”

Calliope _flinched_.

“Even if Amelia is on that list, I’m not allowed to say whether or not she is.”

Kiara’s face went absolutely serious. She knew what that reaction meant.

“How long?”

Calliope maintained a face of passive coolness, acting as the reaper she was.

“I cannot say.”

The rest of the group looked at the two. Kiara decided to be blunt.

“Ame’s on the list again. I don’t know time travel, but I know _you_ , Calli. You’d play it off casually if Amelia weren’t; your seriousness betrays you.”

Calliope looked away. She held out her hand, and vanished into the shadows.

The four that were left looked at each other.

Gura decided to lighten the mood. “I’d say maybe she could come home with me, but, uh, I don’t think Ame would appreciate living _under_ the ocean surface.”

Ina stated the obvious solution: “Then she’s coming with me. It's not safe here.”

Kiara loosened up a bit from what she said to Calli, though not much: “Sorry, Ame, but I think we might have made an executive decision to not let you live alone from now on.”

Amelia laughed.

“To be honest, I think I’m okay with that, though, as of right now, I think today Ina’s gonna have to be with me. I don’t have a second bed, though, so I’m not sure where Kiara’s gonna sleep.”

“Oh, that’s easy.”

And with that, Kiara moved her hands to her belt. As she did so, the belt dissolved; and as it happened, Kiara herself went up in flames; transforming from her human form to a phoenix.

A small phoenix at that; if you didn’t know better you would’ve thought this bird was a pet belonging to somebody who dealt with the supernatural regularly.

“I’ll just relax like this. I won’t set anything on fire, I promise. We won’t move until tomorrow.”

* * *

Amelia stared at her ceiling, unable to sleep beside the peacefully sleeping Ina.

She cursed her indecisiveness silently.

_Well, if it’s midnight and I can’t sleep anyway…_

She got out of bed, and took out a blank diary - her own, not from the future - and began writing.

_I know not why I would write a book addressed to an alternate version of myself that will never read these words, but perhaps it’s because of me accepting what it is I ultimately have decided to not pursue any further. I decided to leave it all behind, and I don’t regret doing so. I truly don’t._

* * *

Amelia stared at her ceiling, unable to sleep beside the peacefully sleeping Ina.

The thought of knowing your death was very close did that to you.

_Well, if it’s midnight and I can’t sleep anyway…_

She got out of bed, and took out two books: one annotated from the future, and one without the help. She opened the annotated copy, and began reading the note from her future self:

_The first technique to learn is the manipulation of personal time - which is a set of two abilities; one to accelerate your personal time flow as fast as you want (meaning you can zip around at hyper speed while the world comparatively hangs there, frozen), and the ability to rewind your personal time - this is powerful, but it does not cause a split in the timeline. The restriction, of course, is that you can’t go back that far; it’s range is limited._

_The second technique is the object time-gate; which is the ability to send objects into the time stream. This too does not split the timeline, as long as you make the decision to send the object to a single point. For some reason, the ‘never meet your past/future self’ rule does not apply to inanimate objects; it’s something to do with souls, and I don’t know enough about that; Calli probably does, though. This is the last technique I can teach you, as it was what allowed me to send this diary back to you. You don’t have much time, so get learning!_

Amelia looked at the note from the future, and then transcribed the note, word for word, to her copy of the book. Maybe the future version of her wasn’t trolling her; it was just the one who started the whole thing-

_Wait, which Amelia could that’ve been-ugh, my head hurts._

She looked at her watch - on the setting that told time.

It was 12:48 (1) and the second hand was ticking away as it always did. 

She put her hand to her stopwatch and focused. She adjusted a dial, while watching the clock.

The second hand froze, the march of time’s otherwise inexorable march stopping for Amelia. She focused, looking at the clock as the second hand slowly regained its momentum, accelerating back to running at a pace of one second per second.

Another figure entered the room.

It was Ina.

“Whatcha you doing up at this hour?”

Amelia sighed. Of course Ina would notice.

“Couldn’t sleep, decided to practice time manipulation. Actually, this is a good opportunity to see if this works.”

“If what-”

As Ina said that, Amelia turned her stopwatch forward, jumping her own personal time flow ahead of Ina. Ina froze, the last word of the sentence stretching out over what to Amelia was several seconds. While frozen, Amelia took the time to get up from the chair and walk a small loop around Ina.

Ina, of course, perceived this as Amelia getting up instantly and suddenly giving her the run-around faster than it was possible for anyone to physically move. She stumbled back, wondering what happened.

“-works? What was that?”

“I accelerated my own personal time flow. I can experience time the way I want to.”

She smiled, and gave a quiet gremlin laugh.

“I can think of so many ways to mess around with this already. I’ll call it a night, I suppose, I’m just kind of...it’s hard to think small anymore after the events of...yesterday, I suppose. Besides, don’t we all say sleep is for the weak anyway?”

Ina frowned, but she couldn’t say she truly understood. She would try her best; that was all she could do.

“There’s a strength in acknowledging your weakness. Get some rest.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (1) 0:48 for those who use 24-hour time. That’s not an analog clock feature, so I’m writing it as it would be read.


	6. Intersection II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ina is worried about her best friend.
> 
> Ina is worried about her best friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to apologize to anyone who finds the events of this fic hard to follow, because somehow it actually only gets worse from here.

Ninomae Ina’nis, more commonly known as Ina, woke up.

Amelia had apparently needed sleep more badly, as she was peacefully sleeping beside her. Kiara, in her little firebird form, was also peacefully sleeping beside the bed.

Ina dragged herself out of bed, to Amelia’s kitchen. It was early, but if Amelia was going to dive into weird philosophical implications of time travel, then it was up to the rest of them to make sure she remembered she was still the same Amelia as ever.

She decided that making breakfast would be a good start. Sure, there was proper etiquette about use of a friend’s kitchen, but Amelia also had a chronic inability to stay mad at her.

_ Or almost anyone,  _ Ina thought.

She was planning to open Amelia’s fridge when said friend showed up.

“Oh, hi Ame.”

Ina thought for a moment.

“Oh. Um...I was thinking of making breakfast.”

“Go ahead, I won’t say no. It’s nice, really. Maybe you could move in with me if you’re going to be this nice a guest, heh heh.”

Ina blushed; she wasn’t really thinking about anything beyond just trying to cheer Amelia up.

There was a knock on the door. Amelia turned around, still in her pajamas, and opened the door for the new guest.

Or old guest, as it turns out - it was Gawr Gura, who, as it turns out, hadn’t gone very far for the night.

“Hey, Ame! What are you up to this morning?”

Amelia was a bit too tired to reply properly.

“Um. Thinking about food. Might make waffles because I have like 72 of them.”

Gura laughed. “That’s more like it!”

A new voice entered, mostly interested in food: “Wait, you have HOW many?!”

Takanashi Kiara walked into the kitchen, in human form. 

“Amelia, why would you even need-you know what, I’ve given up trying to figure out how you operate.”

That voice belonged to Calliope Mori, who stepped out of the shadows.

“I guess we should figure out how we’re gonna do things from here, since, well...we could just go back to normal and pretend this never happened...but on the other hand, it still bothers me, and honestly? It’s nice, actually having housemates.”

* * *

Ninomae Ina’nis, more commonly known as Ina, woke up.

She had gone to bed after telling one of her best friends to rest; Amelia had apparently followed that advice, as she was peacefully sleeping beside her. Kiara, in her little firebird form, was also peacefully sleeping beside the bed.

Ina dragged herself out of bed, to Amelia’s kitchen. It was early, but if Amelia was going to stress herself out learning time travel, it was up to her to make sure Amelia didn’t die pushing herself with it.

Possibly literally, given that Amelia was apparently due to die if there was no intervention.

She decided that making breakfast would be a good start. Sure, there was proper etiquette about use of a friend’s kitchen, but Amelia also had a chronic inability to stay mad at her.

_ Or almost anyone,  _ Ina thought. It seemed that Amelia was only capable of being mad at herself.

She was planning to open Amelia’s fridge when said friend showed up.

“Oh, hi Ame.”

Ina thought for a moment.  _ I should offer her breakfast. _

“Yeah, I won’t say no.”

_ What? I hadn’t even asked- _

“You were a few seconds from offering to make breakfast for me. I was saying yes in advance. You’re also about to ask if there’s time travel involved, and, yes, I learned how to do rewinds. It’s admittedly a little mean to use you as a practice round, but I had fun watching your reactions on the second and third rewind - the first rewind wasn’t quite as smooth.”

Ina blinked.

“I’ve had fun with that, and I will continue to do so, but I need to get everyone here. I’m due to die if there’s no intervention, and I have no clue how much time I have left, so I want to play it paranoid. If you guys are volunteering to go down with me, I only want to explain this once. Thankfully Gura’s about to show up.”

As if on cue, Gawr Gura walked in through the front door.

“I had the door unlocked in advance since I knew she would do that. Kiara and Calli are gonna show up in about five seconds from now.”

“Wait, what…?”

And also on cue, Takanashi Kiara walked into the kitchen, in human form, while Calli stepped out of the shadows.

“I’ve repeated this morning a few times, but as fun as it is rewinding time to mess you you guys, I do actually want to make it to tomorrow.”

Calliope, Kiara, Ina, and Gura stared at each other, confused.

* * *

At exactly the same time, but in a timeline where Amelia chose not to learn time travel, Ina spoke.

“I’ll be honest, I’m considering moving in with Amelia, if she doesn’t mind.”

The other four members of the group looked at her.

Amelia spoke first. “Really? I kind of suggested that as a joke.”

Ina shrugged. “I don’t have much of a reason not to, to be honest. Calli and Kiara practically live together, and Gura lives underwater, but otherwise right next to you. As you put it, it’d be nice to have someone else around to take care of the house when I’m being too lazy to actually do any of that myself. You said it yourself - having housemates is actually nice. That, and honestly the time travel thing, and I know you don’t want to talk about this, but...it changed you. I can tell.”

Amelia slumped over in her chair.

“Yeah. It’s just...the universe seems so...small, really. I threw away so much of reality just because I was indecisive, and it bothers me knowing that I don’t know anymore.”

Ina frowned. “Alright, that settles it, I’m definitely moving in.”

“What? Why?”

“Because I’m not letting you live like this anymore, Ame.”

Amelia sighed. “I mean, I’m trying to move past it. I probably just need a little more time.”

Calliope finally spoke. “No, to be quite honest, you need a lot less time and a lot more purpose.”

Ina, Gura, and Amelia looked confused, and looked to Calliope. Kiara, on the other hand, said nothing, but gave a smile that was definitely in sympathy.

“I always asked,” Calliope mused, “What it was that Kusotori saw in mortals. These folks who care so much about their mortality when their time is limited and they’re going to die anyway. Why someone immortal would care about somebody who isn’t going to be around for much longer. And, as much as I’d like to explain it, Kiara’s here, and she can explain it better than anyone, because she’s both immortal and alive; I only qualify for one of those.”

Kiara took a breath, but spoke surprisingly evenly for, well, Kiara.

“When your time is limited, you know it, and you find meaning in life, knowing it will end. And most mortals want this; most people want to do something,  _ anything,  _ to find something to do in their life that gives it meaning before the end catches up to them. 

“I have a different problem: my time  _ isn’t  _ limited. Consequences don’t exist for me in the same way they do for other people. And because of that, finding things to do in my life - finding a purpose in it, something to truly enjoy - might well be the hardest thing for me to do, because I have so many lives to burn, literally speaking. And that’s what’s happened to you, Ame.”

Amelia paused.

“But I’m not. I’m pretty mortal and totally ordinary.”

Kiara continued: “Mortal, yes, ordinary, no. The whole experience made you think about the grand scheme of things  _ way _ too far out. You’re thinking in terms of alternate timelines and futures and things like that. You  _ need  _ to live in the moment, or the reality of eternity catches up to you. I’ve had thousands of lives to practice how to find purpose - to find happiness - in life when the reality of how enormous time is catches up to me. You only have one life to do the same because, unlike me, you will have a deathbed to decide whether or not what you did in life was worth it.”

They all paused at what Kiara had said. It was surprisingly heartfelt and serious for her.

Calliope finished: “You’re mortal, Amelia. Eventually I’m going to collect your soul. And you better well say that you enjoyed your life when I get around to doing so. And we’ll make sure that’s the case, because neither me, Kusotori, Ina, or Gura will let you live like this.”

* * *

In the other timeline, Amelia continued explaining her plans to her friends:

“I’m about to set a rewind anchor at the exact end of this conversation. When it goes off, I will have an automatic reset point that I can come back to - I’m paranoid, but that means I’m just playing this right; if today is when I’m supposed to die, I will rewind to that point. I’m explaining all of this because I want you guys to know what if it suddenly looks like I know things that I shouldn’t be able to know. Also, I’ve heard living the same day over and over might cause me to go slightly insane, so please bear with me if I go slightly off the rails.”

Calliope, Kiara, Ina, and Gura stared at each other, now worried.

Calliope broke the silence. “Are you sure you’re willing to do this? None of us will be able to come with you on the rewinds. Only you will be trapped in the loop, if that happens.”

“I don’t wanna die, but I also don’t want to screw it up for you guys; I’d rather I just optimize my part until it all works out. Remember that I have as many attempts as I need; in a sense, you don’t.”

She took a moment to breathe.

“After that, I’m moving out; because apparently for my own safety I’m gonna live with Ina from now on. Honestly, I don’t disagree with that. After that, we’ll all survive, and we’ll figure out how to handle the rest of the timeline going completely haywire. Otherwise, the rewind anchor will activate in 3, 2, 1...”

A flash of light emitted from the watch. The room went silent, waiting for anything to happen. Everything seemed to be going according to Amelia’s plan.

Ina was bothered, though. Amelia now had the ability to erase whatever she wanted from their memory - if she rewinded, none of them could remember.

She  _ hated _ it. She wanted to help Amelia, as she was carrying the weight of multiple timelines and possibly the fate of the world on her shoulders. If she was only able to get an insight into one timeline at a time, helping Amelia was impossible.

And that gave her an idea. She decided to use her powers. Keeping her book, the embodiment of the ancient ones, closed, she prepared to inscribe a mark, magically.

The mark was small, a very simple black rune that floated around Amelia’s head. It was also asymmetric in perception; Ina could see it, but Amelia could not. She could control who saw and didn’t see it. It was harmless, she could dismiss it at will, and if Amelia was somehow already marked without Ina remembering doing so, that could only be explained by a rewind. It was perfect.

Which was why she was suddenly terrified when she saw that Amelia already had  _ nineteen  _ marks. She conjured a twentieth, and then asked, in a quiet but very worried tone:

“What’s about to happen?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...and I would also like to apologize for ending the chapter on a cliffhanger, except I'm not really all that sorry for doing that.
> 
> "It's rewind time!", as the meme goes.


	7. Intersection III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amelia Watson has her route plotted perfectly.
> 
> In retrospect, she should’ve warned Calliope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the first time since Intervention, we keep the narrative to one timeline. Sort of.

Amelia Watson stared back at Ina.

“You’re always been perceptive.”

Ina realized that she might have given the game away - if Amelia figures out how Ina’s tracking her, it might give the game away too easily. It’s dishonest, yes, but if Amelia’s going to be a selfless idiot, then Ina’s fine taking drastic measures to counteract it.

“I mean, the way I see it, if you take, say, 20 attempts, we don’t know which of the 20 we’re in - but it’s likely not the first. Only you would know.”

Amelia laughed. “Funny that you guess 20 - this is the 20th attempt at trying to not die. I’ve figured out a plan, and it’s beyond stupid at this point, but it might work. Unlike last time, I actually have a murderer after me. From the future, apparently because future me causes a lot of damage and killing me now will make certain there’s a timeline that survives whatever it is I do. If anyone wants to abandon me for ruining the future, now’s the time to do so.”

The room’s other four occupants simply gave Amelia a look of disbelief.

“Okay, that hasn’t changed in any of my runs, which is good. Here’s the plan: I’m going to meet my murderer at the abandoned factory outside of the city and, hopefully, I win. If I don’t, I reset, and none of you remember it. She has this annoying property where reality seems to distort when I get too close to her; and I’ve finally convinced myself that either I go or she does.”

The four other members of hololiveEN looked at each other.

“I was content with letting her live, but after attempt 17, where she got both Ina and Gura killed, well...yeah, that’s why. I’m not letting any of you die. Which is troublesome, because I’m finally convinced that I need your help to kill her, but I don’t want any of you to have the burden of committing murder. I’ve actually figured out a plan, and I need-”

Calliope snapped.

“I’m literally Death, and Kiara’s reincarnated into a terrible world or two before, and if our mystery murderer has already killed my friends before why the hell would I do nothing?”

Amelia looked down.

“Alright, fine, it’s because she has this ability to fast-forward herself; she can speed up to impossibly fast speeds. She killed Kiara the last time she got involved because Kiara couldn’t land a hit - that was attempt 18, and the last time I tried to get Kiara involved.”

Calliope seemed unimpressed. “You’re different how?”

Amelia smugly replied. “I can _also_ do that. Wait! Argh, I knew I forgot to show the rest of you that ability. Yeah, I can kind of speed up my personal time so the entire world goes super-slowly to me while I move in normal time. It’s pretty wild, and it’s really annoying having an opponent who can also do that. I forgot that Ina’s the only one who I showed the ability to before the rewind, so I need to explain that every time now, damn it.”

She paused.

“Right, the whole part where I’m going to fight my murderer; I have a plan that’s kind of stupid and requires I only tell you exactly what you need to know. Calliope, I need you at the factory rooftop, as that’s where I’m going to meet our mystery murderer. Weirdly enough, I need you, Kiara, to stay outside, with Ina and Gura - this is critical, as I am not letting you die. Mostly because I don’t want to watch you three die again, even if I can rewind it so it never happens. Actually, you all have an important role - just not in the fighting; and if I say what it is that’ll change the outcome, so I can’t say yet.”

Ina felt sick.

_She’s...she’s human. She can’t possibly take reliving every hard day of her life 20 times. Humans can’t handle that. But what can I do…?_

Kiara didn’t bother with the contemplating-her-thoughts step.

“Amelia, you’re mortal. You’re not _meant_ to die multiple times, and it’s not healthy for you to go through this.”

Amelia shrugged. “Consequences are for people who don’t have a real-life Ctrl-Z at their disposal. I promise I know what I’m doing.”

Calliope glared. “And are you saying you know more than you did in the first 19 attempts?”

“Yes, actually - you learn more from failures. That, and you guys want to help - I’m actually directing you to the best way to do so.”

Calliope let out a frustrated breath. “Fine, what do I do?”

“Come to the factory rooftop, but make sure you aren’t seen. When I make this gesture,” Amelia made the rocker gesture, extending her pinky and index fingers from an otherwise enclosed fist, “Conjure your scythe, everything will make sense at about, well, from my perspective, probably about a minute or two, and from yours, probably about 3-5 seconds. Don’t do anything until I give the signal. I figured out most of this strategy at attempt 19, where I _almost_ got her - you’re the missing piece. I hope you don’t mind being an accessory to murder.”

“Ame, I’m literally a Shinigami.”

“That’s the spirit!”

* * *

The five met outside the city, at the abandoned factory. All five of them in position; Kiara, Ina, and Gura on the outside, Calliope on the rooftop, out of sight from the door, and Amelia also on the rooftop, but visible from the door that led there, revolver drawn.

Perfect spot for a confrontation.

The door opened. Amelia stared down her opponent.

Her opponent was wearing a mask and helmet, completely disguising her identity. Their voice was clearly altered, somehow.

And, in a brief moment of weakness, both of them held their heads in their hands as a sudden migraine overtook both of them at the same time; as if some force in the universe was trying to push them apart.

They recovered, and pointed revolvers at each other, and both fired.

_Getting there._

Calliope, from her vantage point, watched Amelia. At the moment she drew the revolver, the sound of gunfire was heard.

And somehow, Amelia dodged the bullets.

Calliope was lost. Amelia completely disregarded physics in favour of playing her physics at impossibly fast speeds - she was suddenly out of the way of every bullet sent her way.

From Amelia’s perspective, of course, she was moving normally - it was just that the bullets weren’t moving at their full velocity anymore, alongside the rest of the world; Calliope was practically just waiting there, frozen.

Her opponent did the same, the bullets all wasted as they traveled too slowly relative to the opponent they were trying to hit; while they could move that fast, the bullets still moved at their relatively glacial pace.

In the chaos, Calliope watched. Both Amelia and her masked opponent stopped, both of them resuming their normal flow of time.

And then she caught it; a very brief gesture from Amelia that meant it was time to go.

Calliope conjured her scythe as fast as she could. This was evidently the critical moment, somehow.

_3-5 seconds from my perspective. Let’s see it, Watson._

And then both Watson and her opponent entered bullet time once again. Calliope watched the chaos unfold, and then something impossible happened.

Amelia Watson practically blinked to Calliope’s position, and then, with a time-accelerated arm movement, snatched Calliope’s scythe right out from her hand.

Up until now, both time accelerated combatants were locked in a stalemate; they could attempt to shoot each other, but they were made less useful by the fact that they could dodge bullets; even though they were moving that fast, the bullets they fired did not.

This made a melee weapon much deadlier; as the only speed limit a melee weapon has is the speed you can carry it at.

The masked assailant realized too late what Amelia had pulled. Amelia blinked over to her opponent’s position; and while her opponent also utilized bullet time to run away, the roof had little space. The masked figure, pushed to the edge of the roof, turned around to face Amelia.

The masked figure drew their revolver one last time, and pointed it at Amelia.

“This is what you get for the eternity of suffering _you_ start.”

They fired.

While the bullets moved slower, at point blank range, it was still pretty hard to dodge, and since the bullets were still moving in standard physics, despite Amelia’s perception, it would do a lot of damage if it hit her.

Amelia dodged, moving the bullet’s strike zone from her head to grazing her left arm.

Now it was Amelia’s turn. She brought the reaper’s scythe down, impaling her would-be murderer.

“And _this_ is what you get for murdering my friends!”

At that moment, she resumed normal time, letting go of Calliope’s scythe.

And then the pain of being shot really did hit her, all at once - time was now operating at normal speed, and the pain of being shot could not be ignored.

She looked at her hands. They were covered in burn marks - and these were clearly magical; there was no fire or any sign of heat; her hands just bore black marks that were similarly pained.

It was over. Her opponent was dead. She was safe.

The realization started to creep in.

_Holy shit. I...I just killed someone._

She stared at the body of the one she had personally murdered, watching the blood pour from the wound from the scythe. She fell down, the weight of the past 5 real-time seconds starting to get to her, the world a blur.

“Oh, right, Calli, I might need you to like, carry me back...I’m...kinda…”

* * *

Amelia Watson woke up in bed, back in her bedroom. Her arm had been bandaged at where the bullet grazed her left arm.

“You’re awake. Care to explain what it is you did? Because you said I’d understand in 5 seconds, and it’s been closer to 5 hours.”

Amelia sighed.

“You haven’t figured it out? I borrowed your scythe to kill her. Me. I don’t know.”

“That is a Shinigami-only weapon! Those things are designed to induce pain and actively hurt any mortal who tries to wield it!”

Amelia revealed her hands.

“Then why borrow _my_ weapon of all things?”

“It’s the most lethal of the bunch, and guns stopped working because we couldn’t actually hit each other if we had any distance. I wanted to be sure I could kill my opponent there. Sorry about the whole fainting thing; I wasn’t ready for how brutal that death was going to look. It’s remarkably different when you’re the one swinging that thing. I guess you’d know.”

Calliope looked unamused. “Well, are you happy? Are you satisfied with adding ‘murdered in self-defense’ to your before-you-die list?”

“Ugh, I don’t know. I really didn’t want to do that, and, god...I’m trying not to think about it, especially since...nevermind, it doesn’t matter.”

“No, I’m pretty sure it _does_ matter, and if you deny it, I’m calling in the big guns.”

“Go ahead. I just feel...so _empty_ about the whole thing.”

“Alright, then. I don’t think there's much I can say, really.”

Calliope left the room, then Kiara walked into the room.

Amelia responded in a chipper manner. “Hi! I’m a murderer now. In self-defense, sort of.”

Kiara interrupted. “If we count my many reincarnations, so am I. I’m not always so nice.”

“Those were probably worse worlds to live in than this.”

“True, but the point is under pressure both of us can revert to worse instincts. You’re not a monster, Ame.”

Amelia sighed. “No, it’s just...I saw a dead body. An actual, honest-to-god dead body. And I’m the one who made it that way. I presume Calli told you about my stunt.”

“That was unbelievably stupid...but it worked, so I guess it wasn’t _too_ stupid. First me reading the death list for you and now you literally stealing her scythe; it really isn’t Calli’s day.”

Both Amelia and Kiara laughed at that. It was ridiculous, but on the other hand, Calliope had perhaps the most legitimate reason to be frustrated.

“I don’t really wanna get out of bed. I’m just...I just want to not think about what I did to the other...I guess it doesn’t matter too much now, does it.”

“If you have something to say, you should say it.”

“I guess I don’t have much to say.”

Kiara sighed.

“You should talk about it, if something’s bothering you.”

Kiara got up and left, leaving Amelia alone. Ina was next.

Amelia attempted to greet her. “Hi! I’m-”

Ina finished the sentence. “-a murderer, right? Ame...it wasn’t your fault.”

“Um...it kind of was? Heck, I spent 20 attempts setting up her death; that’s first-degree, too. First-degree self-defense murder. That’s probably a new sentence.”

“Cut to the chase: how many times have you rewinded this conversation?”

“Zero, so far. Look, rewinding is a funny prank tool, but I don’t actually want to be dishonest towards my friends. This time travel stuff gives me enough trust issues with myself, I don’t want to share.”

“A bit too late for that.”

“Ina...”

“Amelia, have you not noticed that we actually want to help?”

“Yeah. I’m just...it’s the first time I’ve actually killed. It’s surreal to look at a dead body and realize that I’m the reason it’s that way.”

“That’s not what’s bothering you, is it?”

“I suppose out of all of us, I am the least capable of lying to _you_ in particular. I guess I might as well get it out to everyone.”

And with that, Amelia Watson got out of bed.

* * *

Gura spoke in a faux annoyed voice.

“Oh come on! I didn’t get my 1-on-1 see-if-we-can-make-Amelia-talk session!”

Amelia laughed. “Yeah, but Ina’s scary inquisitive. But honestly, you’re all like this, and I really can’t hide it anymore. So I want to talk about it.”

Gura replied: “Talk about what?”

“The events of today. If I’m correct, then my first-degree self-defense murder was, in addition to all of that, also a suicide.”

Kiara and Gura looked confused, while Calli and Ina looked both confused and horrified.

“That’s right: my theory is that my own would-be murderer was another me. I just killed myself from an alternate timeline.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting this while really tired in the early morning, so there might be a lot of mistakes.
> 
> And, FINALLY, we're starting to see why I named this arc "Intersection", though the real intersection hasn't happened yet. Ride's about to get wild.


	8. Intersection IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amelia Watson decides that the secrets of time travel are too dangerous to let live in this timeline.
> 
> Amelia Watson finds out her decision to avoid it didn’t matter in the way she hoped it did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now we get to the chapter that made me name this arc ‘Intersection’.

The five members of hololiveEN looked at each other.

The revelation was pretty big: Amelia had just killed another version of herself.

This, of course, raised the obvious question, which Gura asked:

“So...are you going to come back here so you can die at this time in the future?”

Amelia sighed.

“Maybe? I honestly don’t know. She did just split the timeline, though - one where I killed her and one where this mess didn’t happen. I think. I’m not going to think this through too hard. Not now, at least. Maybe I’ll think about it again when I’m at Ina’s place.”

She paused for a moment.

“Actually, I think her timeline went wrong somewhere - she came alone. If she had, say, her version of Calliope with her...well, that would’ve been certain death. Then again, I’m not sure I _could_ rope you guys into killing another me. At this point, I’m just assuming that somehow she lost you guys, which apparently means the end of the world, possibly literally.”

The rest of them frowned.

“I’ll get packing. Ina’s place seems as good as any to stick around for a bit.”

Kiara interjected.

“Okay, but if somehow you get almost killed with Ina, I’m making all of us move in with me.”

Amelia laughed.

“You know what, I’ll agree to those terms; I really don’t want the whole time travel thing to drive us apart. Future me needs you guys.”

Calliope responded to the last sentence.

“Actually, I’m pretty sure you need us right now as well.”

“That’s fair, honestly. I’ll get my stuff packed, but before I do so, I have something I need to do.”

Amelia took out her diary of time travel.

“Past me needs this; it’s my original copy, while I keep the one my future self gave me. I copied her notes to mine; this will keep the time loop stable.”

The book disappeared in a flash of light.

“Now, I dunno how you guys plan to get back to your homes, since, uh, I don’t really know how you guys got here.”

* * *

The arrival at Ina’s house was uneventful. Kiara and Calliope decided to go back to their place, while Gura jumped into the ocean, saying that she’d relocate to a closer body of water soon enough.

That left Amelia and Ina, who were pretty tired.

In particular, it’d been a long day for Amelia, and she was fine taking a moment to rest, especially given that she had re-lived the day 20 times in a row. She just wanted some space.

_And I could get it faster via speeding up my personal time, but that’s a pretty trivial use of that power._

She paused.

_You know what, why not? If I can take a minute-long breather in a few seconds, why would-_

Ina interrupted Amelia’s thought with a whisper.

“Don’t.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“You were planning on using your time powers. I’m telling you to actually take a break from it in advance.”

“And to think I’m the time traveller. How’d you know?”

“Amelia, you’re naturally inquisitive and try to explore everything you can do within your powers. I wouldn’t consider myself a good friend if I didn’t see this coming. You need to rest, and using your time powers to take a deep breath doesn’t count.”

“Um, why not?”

“Because no one can help when only you experience the flow of time. I’m not angry, I’m just...well, okay, I guess I am. But I’m not entirely mad at you. I just want to be _able_ to help. Gura’s tends to play it a bit sillier, but she also wants that, too. Living in a moment only you experience is just the same as hiding in a box by yourself, and speaking from experience: it never helps.”

“Yeah, but it’s a really easy box to crawl into.”

“That’s why you have to try to avoid it. Trapping yourself in a comfortable box is so easy to do; and I spent many of my early years as the priestess of the ancient ones in one such box, before I finally decided that it was time for me to be a new priestess instead of just following the last one. I don’t want to see you live like that. I _won’t_ let you live like that. And neither will Gura. Or Kiara. Or Calliope.”

Amelia sank into her seat on the train. She sighed.

“One of these days, we’re going to have an argument over my rewind powers. I can tell. And I want to thank you for being willing to have that, when it comes down to it.”

Ina frowned, but Amelia was right. She had dismissed the marks gained during the 20 attempts, but seeing Amelia suddenly having the prior nineteen marks - nineteen attempts that Ina wasn’t able to do _anything_ to help - did make her mad, mostly at herself; but she knew that if Amelia was going to walk face first into danger, there’d be no way to stop her.

Ina decided to go to bed.

“Amelia, make sure you get some sleep.”

* * *

The day of the argument turned out to be the very next morning.

Ina woke up early. Amelia was still asleep, having taken residence beside Ina in bed.

Ina decided that, if Amelia was going to be too much of an idiot to not push her mental limits because of time travel, then all she could do is support her every step of the way. Starting with breakfast; she could make Amelia eat properly.

She was frustrated with everything, and she almost wanted to-

“Hi. We need to talk.”

Ina turned around. Amelia was there. She was surprised at the attitude; she figured Amelia would dodge the topic for as long as possible. Despite the lack of words, it was obvious what she wanted to talk about.

“Right now? I thought you’d be doing...I dunno, time stuff.”

“I have done time stuff. And we’re having this discussion now, because it’s either we do it early or eventually residual feelings result in us doing really bad things to each other. I’m being lazy and having this discussion when we’re both in good mind.”

Ina was surprised at Amelia’s level of in-

_Oh no._

“Amelia, have you rewound this conversation?”

“Only once, and actually I rewound it so we could have this discussion - we didn’t have it the first time. I promise you, there’s nothing that the previous Ina could tell you that you don’t already know.”

Ina wanted to be mad. The principle of rewinding conversations with her friends was unnerving, and was bound to be the source of many trust issues if left untouched. But, on the other hand, Amelia just rewound time for the explicit purpose of having that discussion.

“Can you promise you won’t rewind conversations in the future? I’m not sure I can trust you if I know that you’re going to reset things.”

Amelia laughed.

“I won’t. Not after this point; anyway. That’s why I want to have this argument now. I need you to convince me to be an idiot, sort of?”

“How?”

“Rewinding allows me to erase almost any mistake I make. I need you to convince me that I can still make mistakes and live with it. It’s so _easy,_ Ina. You can’t imagine how it feels, to have that ability at your fingertips.”

She raised her time travel diary.

“And that’s why I’m getting rid of this thing. I’ve read through it, and, while I understand why my future self wanted me to keep this...watching just my friendship with you just makes it clear that it’s not worth it. Every second I live that everyone else doesn’t is a second that makes me less human. You have every right to be angry; nobody should have this knowledge, let alone me. Maybe you could handle this without losing your mind. I can’t.”

The book floated in the air, as Amelia prepared a time gate.

“That’s why I’m sending this to someone who will _never_ open it. Sending it to somebody who has vowed to never mess with time travel ever again. Only someone like that should ever own this book. I’m still cursed with the knowledge, but I won’t let myself dive deeper than I’ve currently gone.”

Ina paused.

“Ame, you’re making this decision too hastily. Have breakfast, start a chat with all of us. You shouldn’t make this decision alone or on an empty stomach, and you’re doing both right now.”

Amelia paused.

“You know what, that’s a good idea. Do you have waffles?”

“No, but I’ve got pancakes.”

“Good enough.”

* * *

_WatsonAmelia: so_

_WatsonAmelia: I’ve come to an executive decision and I want your opinions_

_WatsonAmelia: I'm getting rid of the time travel book_

_WatsonAmelia: because I don’t think anyone should have this knowledge_

_WatsonAmelia: I’m not sure I can live like this if it keeps getting worse_

_TakanashiKiara: you should’ve done that at the start_

_TakanashiKiara: screw that thing_

_InaInaInaa: I think you’re being a bit too hasty, but I also understand_

_InaInaInaa: I think it’s too late, to be honest_

_InaInaInaa: You already do the time things, you might as well stay the keeper of that knowledge_

_InaInaInaa: You have us to support you_

_GawrGura: to be honest I don’t really understand but I don’t really like time travel sooooo_

_CalliopeMori: I mean I’m still kind of mad at you for the stunt you pulled but like_

_CalliopeMori: I kind of have to respect how brazen an abuse of your powers that was._

_CalliopeMori: But if I’m voting for myself I’ll say get rid of it._

Amelia looked at the chat log.

“Well, Ina, I guess that settles it.”

Ina smiled.

“It’s your choice. It’s always been your choice.”

Amelia looked at the book, and activated the time gate. The book disappeared in a flash of light.

Ina decided to ask the obvious question: “So where exactly _did_ you send that? Or, more appropriately, _when_ did you send that?”

“I sent it sideways in time, to exactly the same time.”

* * *

In a different timeline, Amelia Watson opened the door to her study. She’d been writing in her diary to keep track of things, to keep track of how blessedly normal her life was.

Sitting at her desk, she saw the book, sitting there - the same book she destroyed.

“No. No. Nonononono…”

She breathed in...and then slammed the desk hard.

“NO!”

Ina ran in, hearing her friend shout.

“What’s wrong?”

“Ina...please tell me I’m losing it. Please tell me I’m not looking at _that fucking time travel diary_ again. You know, the one I shot.”

Ina looked at the book.

She was shocked; somehow, the book that Amelia destroyed in the past was back, perfectly in one piece, on Amelia’s desk once again.

“So, what now?”

Amelia was nearly catatonic.

“Amelia...please, this isn’t the end of the world.”

Amelia immediately snapped.

“You may have forgotten, but actually, it kind of _is_ the end of the world.”

Amelia got up, and looked at the diary, as if it would leap up and kill her.

She brought her hands to it, and then opened the front cover.

There was a note, a message written from the other side of possibility space.

* * *

_I am truly sorry. Within this diary are instructions on how to use your stopwatch to learn various powers related to time travel._

_You may be tempted. I hope you are not; you were selected because of your aversion to time travel. The rewind, the ability to control your internal clock...they aren’t worth it. They’re in the process of deteriorating both my mind and the relations with my friends._

_You may ask why I send this diary to you, then, if the intention is that you never learn to control your flow of time. It’s because of the above. I’ve gotten addicted to manipulating my time flow; and I need an intervention. Part of me wanted to outright destroy the diary; making sure there will never be a timeline where it exists._

_But that isn’t an option, either - too many things are riding on the knowledge within, potentially. Possibility space is too large to shut down like that; or maybe that’s my warped perspective and you can end the cycle; I don’t know. As a result, the book requires a safekeeper, someone to guard it. I was the safekeeper, until I realized that I’d fallen to the temptations of manipulating my flow of time._

_I know not what happens in your timeline. The only thing I beg of you is to continue living time at the same speed as everyone else does. If you don’t, you will pay the consequences for possibly all of eternity._

_You probably hate me right now. You should; it is my selfishness, my weakness, that puts you in this scenario. And it’s that hatred that I need. I need you to remember how much you wanted to avoid this. And then use that hatred to continue avoiding it._

* * *

Amelia looked at the note.

“I don’t know what’s worse. How much I hate this, or the face that apparently my hatred is what she wants.”

She picked up the book, and then tossed it at a wall in rage.

It remained in one piece.

“Why can’t I avoid it? This timeline was meant to be free!”

Ina hugged her friend, trying to get Amelia to calm down. On some level, she knew it was no use; she was angry, too, and that was just by association.

“Ame...you should message everyone. Discuss what to do. You’re too angry to be rational right now.”

* * *

_WatsonAmelia: Okay, so this is actually STUPID_

_WatsonAmelia uploaded: how.png_

_WatsonAmelia: apparently my parallel timeline self sent this to me_

_WatsonAmelia: telling me I need to safekeep it_

_InaInaInaa: Specifically, because she hates time travel._

_InaInaInaa: That’s not a joke, by the way._

_GawrGura: why would she give it to a version of her that hates time travel_

_CalliopeMori: I can answer that, I think._

_CalliopeMori: Our version of Amelia will not abuse time travel powers._

_CalliopeMori: There’s less danger of her losing it and doing whatever ruins everything._

_WatsonAmelia: yeah the note said that apparently time manipulation is ruining her mind_

_WatsonAmelia: and then she just sent the thing to me to ruin my life instead?????_

_TakanashiKiara: that’s bullshit Ame, you should just send that back_

_WatsonAmelia: good luck, the sender is in a parallel timeline_

_WatsonAmelia: I’m tempted to learn how just so I can but it’s not worth it_

_WatsonAmelia: I almost want to just split the timeline and destroy it again_

_WatsonAmelia: but I think that will just repeat the process and kick the can down to a future me_

_WatsonAmelia: so we’re stuck_

_TakanashiKiara: so what now_

_WatsonAmelia: I need to get rid of this_

_WatsonAmelia: but I don’t want to do it via destroying it_

_WatsonAmelia: my only hope is that somehow, between this timeline and another..._

_WatsonAmelia: we find an_ **_intersection._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was tempted to call this the end of the Intersection arc.
> 
> But we're not done yet. This chapter is an ending, of sorts, and yet, it feels unsatisfying.
> 
> We're close, though. The fabric of spacetime bends. The once-parallel lines start converging.


	9. Intersection V (Epilogue)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amelia Watson gets a message.
> 
> It’s from Amelia Watson.

Amelia Watson woke up in Ina’s house, as was now their ongoing living situation.

The only warning she got that the day was going to go very strangely was a message on her phone.

_WatsonAmelia*: Is this Amelia Watson? Because if it is, I just wanna give my thanks to you._

_WatsonAmelia*: I kind of need your time travel diary._

Amelia looked at the phone number. It was her own; but clearly, it wasn’t.

_Oh no._

_WatsonAmelia: What the hell?_

_WatsonAmelia: Did you not see the last Amelia who entered my timeline?_

_WatsonAmelia*: The thing is, I didn’t enter this one._

_WatsonAmelia*: Took me a while, but I figured out how to run a chat client across time._

_WatsonAmelia*: Now, this is going to look confusing, but we need to set this up right, so uh:_

_You’ve been invited to join a server: Amelias’ Secret Meeting_

Amelia looked at the server.

_WatsonAmelia: Can I invite Ina?_

_WatsonAmelia*: You can invite whoever you want; there’s no danger over text._

Amelia joined the server, and then left an invite for Ina.

_WatsonAmelia has been renamed to PAmelia1._

_PAmelia1: wait what?????_

_FAmelia1: you’re in the past, relative to me_

_FAmelia1: and the ‘1’ refers to the timeline you’re in._

_FAmelia1: listen, I know you meant well_

_FAmelia1: but you just screwed everything up really badly._

_InaInaInaa joined the server._

_InaInaInaa has been renamed to PIna1._

_FAmelia1: read the pins to understand what the nicknames mean_

_FAmelia2 has joined the server._

_FAmelia2: yeah I was trying to avoid literally exactly this_

_FAmelia2: which means I have to perform a very unfortunate invite_

* * *

In a different timeline, Amelia Watson woke up in her own house, though Ina had taken residence here.

The only warning she got that the day was going to go very strangely was a message on her phone.

_WatsonAmelia*: Is this Amelia Watson?_

_WatsonAmelia*: I kind of need the time travel diary from your other self._

Amelia looked at the phone number. It was her own; but clearly, it wasn’t.

_WatsonAmelia: Listen._

_WatsonAmelia: I hate you._

_WatsonAmelia: But take the goddamn thing and never bother me again._

_WatsonAmelia*: We have a problem with that, so uh..._

* * *

_WatsonAmelia has joined the server._

_WatsonAmelia has been renamed to PAmelia2._

_FAmelia1: There we go! Your other half._

_PAmelia1: you realize she’s going to hate you for this right_

_PAmelia2: I just read the pins and Past Ame 1 I hate you so much right now_

_PAmelia2: This is your fault_

_FAmelia1: Okay, Past Amelia 2, you need to understand something_

_FAmelia1: We are literally trying to help you get rid of the diary properly_

_FAmelia1: And I happen to need it._

_FAmelia1: Or else we go the route of Amelia zero._

_PAmelia1: Amelia zero?_

_FAmelia1: That’s what I’m calling the Amelia that gave the very first diary_

_FAmelia1: the one that actually started this thing_

_FAmelia1: I learned from my future self what actually happens_

_FAmelia1: okay, so, please don’t be offended Past Ina 1 but_

_FAmelia1: Ina 0 completely loses it and invokes the full power of the ancient ones_

_FAmelia1: she kind of goes insane, and Amelia 0 puts her out of her misery_

_PIna1: !!!!!_

_PAmelia2: well that explains why she was so fatalistic, holy shit_

_FAmelia2: I never realized it got that bad_

_FAmelia1: now to be fair this is because Amelia 0 practiced stupidly careless time jumps_

_FAmelia1: and she didn’t care about her friends quite as much as we all do_

_FAmelia1: so she very much was neglectful and let this happen_

_FAmelia1: so she decides she has to prevent it by time jumping to the past_

_FAmelia1: but she doesn’t know how that works yet, because she’s the first_

_FAmelia1: imagine how it feels_

_FAmelia1: to do everything to prevent your friend from losing it_

_FAmelia1: only to find out she’s still dead in your timeline, you just created a new one_

_FAmelia1: I’m surprised she didn’t commit suicide at that moment_

_FAmelia1: or maybe she split the timeline there, I don’t intend to find out_

_FAmelia1: and we’re not in her timeline anyway_

_FAmelia1: there’s only one solution I can think of now_

_FAmelia1: which is to time jump to the future and confront Ina before she does this_

_FAmelia1: and then rewind until both of us live_

_PIna1: I’d appreciate it if you didn’t talk like I wasn’t here_

_FAmelia1: I’m operating under the assumption that you’re not entirely in control of your actions_

_FAmelia1: it’s the only way this makes sense, since normally you’re MORE sane than I am??_

_FAmelia1: anyways the problem is I don’t know how to time jump to the future right now_

_FAmelia1: because SOMEONE decided to dispose of their time travel diary_

_FAmelia1: by dumping it on someone else!!_

_PAmelia1: sorry, past Amelia 2_

_PAmelia2: just tell me what to do_

_PAmelia2: I want to be done sooner rather than later_

_FAmelia1: go to the chapter annotated ‘object time gate’_

_FAmelia1: make sure you read ONLY that chapter_

_PAmelia2: I won’t, I’m trying to avoid this crap_

_FAmelia2: don’t worry, I didn’t._

_FAmelia1: oh, right, I keep forgetting you’re far enough ahead to know what you do_

_FAmelia1: so I guess you’re she’s on the path to send the thing to me_

_FAmelia2: oh no, she doesn’t get it right either_

_FAmelia2: it just so happens that the manner she screws it up in actually works out_

_FAmelia2: I’m actually a lot less mad at you because of a little revelation I’ve had._

_FAmelia2: which is that, as much as I hate this_

_FAmelia2: it’s not like it’s going better for literally any other Amelia right now_

_FAmelia1: yeah, Amelia 0 completely screwed all of us, didn’t she_

_FAmelia2: fate screwed her first_

_PIna1: I don’t mean to interrupt but like_

_PIna1: can we just like_

_PIna1: agree to no more time travel period_

_PAmelia1: two things_

_PAmelia1: there’s a fair chance that this timeline doesn’t contain the event at all_

_PAmelia1: you might just stay sane and not get possessed by the ancient ones at all_

_PAmelia1: maybe living normally is just what we need_

_PAmelia1: I’m really hoping for that, to be honest_

_PAmelia1: but I’m paranoid and if I have the tools to be paranoid properly I might as well use em_

_PIna1: okay, fair enough_

_PAmelia1: second_

_PAmelia1: if I take 50 attempts to save what is, from your perspective, your future self_

_PAmelia1: then what reason do I have to care_

_PAmelia1: retries are literally infinite_

_PIna1: what if they aren’t_

_PIna1: what if there is some consequence you’re eventually building towards_

_FAmelia1: if it turns out that there’s actually no way to save us both_

_FAmelia1: I’ll split the timeline, and then probably shoot myself rather than turning into Amelia 0_

_FAmelia1: I don’t care how reckless it is_

_FAmelia1: sorry past Ina 1, you’re kind of outnumbered opinion wise_

_FAmelia1: and actually, I just got the diary so I guess past ame figured it out_

_FAmelia2: nope_

_FAmelia2: that was from me_

_FAmelia2: you see since we only need to get your diary to a fixed point in time_

_FAmelia2: it doesn’t actually matter if it’s sent from my past or my right now_

_FAmelia2: so actually she gets some good time-travel free memories without this mess_

_FAmelia2: I may have told her this in private_

_FAmelia2: which I did because future me told me that in private_

_PAmelia1: okay, that’s most of it, but I just have to ask now_

_PAmelia1: which timeline was the Amelia that tried to kill me earlier from?_

_FAmelia1: I’m still working on that, actually. Post-analysis indicates she uh, to put it scientifically_

_FAmelia1: completely lost her mind_

_FAmelia1: I think that’s a good place to tie it all up, though_

_FAmelia1: until this all happens, anyway_

_FAmelia1: you actually get about six months of just like_

_FAmelia1: living with Ina and doing casual detective work now_

_FAmelia2: my past self gets about a year_

_FAmelia2: but I don’t invent cross-timeline text messaging_

_FAmelia1: I’ll send you the specifications in six months_

_FAmelia1: Remember this conversation, it’ll be important when you are in my position_

* * *

In the present moment, in a timeline where Amelia Watson learned time manipulation, the detective put down her phone.

_Six months._

She had six months of blessed freedom, where nothing goes wrong.

An entire six months to try and see if she still had it in her to live normally.

Ina walked into the room.

Amelia looked back at her.

“I’m gonna try. I’m gonna try to live like a normal person. For you. Please...stay sane. Don’t get involved in whatever...because I don’t wanna loop myself a hundred times over to save you.”

Ina frowned.

“If it comes to that...please, just end my life instead. If I’m truly no longer in a state of mind to be reasoned with...please don’t consider me your friend anymore. I’m not sure how I’d react to knowing you had to put yourself through hundreds of attempts worth of pain for my sake, anyway. I feel bad not doing anything when you spent twenty attempts trying to beat...well, yourself, I guess. If you spent ten times that for many trying to save me...I don’t know. I don’t know how I’d feel.”

Amelia also frowned.

“If it’s worth anything, you’re not the only person I’d do it for. But, tell you what, let’s just make it simple: six months without rewinds. Six months of me allowing myself to make mistakes. I’ll promise you that much; as my future self promised me.”

Ina smiled at Amelia.

“Then let that be a promise. Let’s just let things go, for now.”

* * *

At the same moment of time but in a parallel timeline, Amelia Watson looked at the chatroom, having read the time-gate tutorial.

A full blessed year with no time travel.

She had to admit, that was a smart revelation from her future self. It’s a single, fixed point in time; why rush? Why force herself to learn proper forward/backward time-gates when she could just send it sideways instead?

All it took was some time, and she had quite a bit of that.

She got up, intent on finding her housemate.

“Ina! We’re free for the next year! I actually worked out a solution to not worry about this anymore!”

Ina walked into the room, smiling.

Amelia smiled again. An entire year of living normally, without any weird time shenanigans.

“Congratulations, Ame. To think you were so worried.”

* * *

END OF INTERSECTION

To be continued in **Interconnected**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally got to answer the question of "What exactly was it that Ina forgave the first Amelia for?" which is nice.
> 
> I'm taking a break from this thing for now - I can already feel my brain wanting to break into pieces at the thought of keeping track of timelines during Interconnected (the third arc), and in-story the characters get their good break too, so it's as good a place as any to call it a day.
> 
> Also a good place to end the fic for good, if I decide I'm not returning to this - just pretend that an ordinary life prevents the whole event where Ina apparently loses it to the ancient ones and thus nothing flashy happens when the past selves catch up to the future selves (heh, yeah right).

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [HoloAfterLive](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29258865) by [wrsw](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrsw/pseuds/wrsw)




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